


Feelings Unknown

by Vee



Category: Muse
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-02
Updated: 2011-05-02
Packaged: 2017-11-21 13:24:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 34,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/598246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vee/pseuds/Vee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dom is a phone sex operator and Matt is the caller who falls for him... but is it just love over the wire?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

There’s a family that moved in next door with a son in high school. I’d know nothing about him if his mother didn’t make it such a point to tell me he’s joining the Navy in the Summer. She’s probably just eager to be rid of him; he’s an annoying kid. He plays his music too loud, which I wouldn’t mind if it weren’t shit music and if it didn’t interfere with my work. I went over one night and knocked on the door, past midnight after I got hung up on for the second time in a shift. I told the confused mother that he needed to turn down his copy of Limp Bizkit’s Greatest Hits or cover my paycheck for the night. 

The next day, the little prick is stepping over to my side of the duplex. I’m sitting on my front porch, smoking a cigarette. I smoke them outside. Trying to kick the habit. The special effort makes it easier to cut back slowly. 

I regard him with a challenging glare, lowering my cell phone and the text message I’ve been composing. I take a drag as I wait for him to speak. Behind me, my dog is having a fit, noticing the stranger and jumping against the screen door. 

“What do you do for a living?” He asks. No apology, not even a courtesy hello. 

“I’m a phone sex operator,” I answer him, ashing on the stoop.

“Yeah, right,” he rolls his eyes and scoffs, adjusting his backpack and turning for his own house again, “asshole.” 

I put the cigarette back between my lips and flip him off as he walks away, hoping he’ll get thrown in jail for all the drinking and driving I know he does, and never make it as far as the Navy.

\--

“He didn’t believe me and he called me an asshole,” I explain to Rosie on the phone, laughing. She sighs heavily, and I lower the plate I’ve been scrubbing. “Oh, what?” 

“Don’t just go telling people you’re in the sex trade, Dom. Believe it or not, you can get evicted for that in some cases.” 

I give her my own sigh and rinse the plate off, moving it to the rack for drying. “Sorry.” Rosie owns the lines, which makes her, effectively, my boss. She wires the money to my account, at least, and is kind enough to keep in touch. She worries about me, because I live alone. I live alone because I hate other people, really. I like dogs and I like Captain Morgan, but besides that there are few people in my life. It’s pretty blissful. I don’t think I lack anything.

“Sorry. He’ll probably just think it was a joke, like my way of telling him to fuck off. If his mom gets all suspicious I’ll just use the old stock trader story.”

It’s a common story in the business. If you have to run home suddenly to dial in for work, you explain that you trade stocks online and that Tokyo’s business day starts in an hour. I’ve actually become rather familiar with random facts and figures about trading. I’m an actor, after all. It helps to have at least a little knowledge to run an effective game. 

Sad testament to the state of the arts: it is approximately a million times easier to get work as a phone sex operator than it is to get work as an actor. Even a well-educated, highly experienced, and (by all accounts) quite attractive actor who played everything from Hamlet to Henry Hill. No one likes actors. At least I’m not waiting tables on the side. I’m just too obsessive-compulsive to deal with food.

I play specific roles, and answer for four different lines. For one, I’m a horny high school boy. My alias is Garrett, for that one. My friend Jackie came up with the name, selling it by asking “When was the last time you saw a fug guy named Garrett?” Another one of the lines is more or less vanilla, which is usually where the closeted husbands or secretly bi frat boys call in. I go by Nick for that one. The third, I’m a sub named Cody. The fourth, I’m a mouthy, argumentative little bastard named Heath who makes you work for the honor of fucking him. 

Going with different pseudonyms is key, or else I’m liable to slip into one character and stay in it the rest of the night. Sometimes asking a caller to “say my name” is more of a nudge to my memory than anything else. On those nights, it takes all of my acting power to take one call as Heath and switch right over to shy little Cody. 

I feel most like Nick, though. Fitting, it’s the first name I ever took, the first line I ever answered for, and the name that’s practically my own. My calls as Nick tend to be a bit more complex. Sometimes there are the guys who call in with the express intent of getting off, and those are difficult to hang on to, but as Nick I’m more likely to have to talk someone up to it. Often, I get first-timers, guys who have never even been with another man. There are the strange cases, too. There’s one older man who calls me up just to talk, some nights. His mother just died and he’s had a rough go of it. We progressed past phone sex long ago. He says I’m a good friend, for listening. 

And sometimes, that’s what it is. I listen to people and I can’t believe some of the things they’re willing to tell me. They open up about their problems, their anxieties, much more than just their kinks. As Nick, I’ve had people confess their sins and their secrets, and whenever one of my few friends asks if my job is degrading or dehumanizing, I just think back to those conversations. 

The rate of pay goes up ten cents every twenty minutes, then it caps off at fifty cents a minute after an hour. I pay good attention to those guys who like to talk and confess and be friends with me. I can make $30 an hour on them, and never once do I feel sorry for them or think I’m any better just because I never have to call a sex hotline. Quite the opposite, actually. Some of them are just hopeless addicts to it, but where some people would just be gambling or boozing it up, or even going to strip clubs and spending triple that in a night, they’re sitting around talking to me about how fucked up their tenth grade Summer at camp wound up being. 

I’ve become actor, prostitute, confidant, babysitter, advisor, and priest. All at once. It’s not a bad gig. And it pays exceptionally well. For all the shit calls that require me to bite my tongue just to keep from laughing, or end with me being swore at and hung up on, there are the nights when line 1 lights up, and I answer the phone, and everything is interesting for as long as I can manage to keep the other person on the phone. 

Rosie kept me on the phone only a little longer, just chatting about her neighbor’s relationship drama and how she and her husband were considering a new apartment in Soho. They’d probably do it as long as they decided not to start up the website. Rosie’s husband, a photographer (yes… _that_ sort of photographer. Birds of a feather meet at sex trade conventions), was trying to convince her to open a site for webcam chat and photo galleries. It would take a lot of capital, which meant they would probably stay in their current digs in Long Beach a little longer, until the site started generating revenue. Rosie and Dean were both graduates of NYU in business, so they knew their shit. I personally wanted the site to take off; Dean was already talking me up in a way he never had before. He had only met me in person once, and was asking for a portfolio. I was trying to get my nerve up to admit I would be willing to work the webcams. For the moment, though, I enjoyed the phones too much to give it up. Typing and writhing live wouldn’t be the same as spinning stories in my own voice for an audience of one.

“I’ve got to go, Dom. And I can hear that someone else thinks it’s about time, too.”

“You’re right about that. He hasn’t shut up for the last hour,” I look down at my little Boston Terrier and raise my eyebrows as if I’m patently unimpressed by his skittering about. “Talk to you later.”

“Bye, Dom.” 

This isn’t the phone I use for business. My cell phone is nothing but my personal phone, and for that reason it’s rarely used. On purpose, I leave it on the counter as I retrieve the leash and head for the door. “Come on, Wembley.”

\--

“Hi, this is Nick. How are you feeling tonight?”

Rule 1: you always introduce yourself. It gives them a chance to call you by a name, which 90% of the time they want to do. People who call phone sex lines like a bit of play-acting, and the personal touch means a lot. Rule 2: Make it sexy. I answer Line 1 in my own voice, I don’t put on a dialect or an accent at all. It’s just a little bit teasing. Cheerful. Inviting. Then there’s Rule 3: Ask how they’re feeling. People are shy when they call in, most of the time. However they answer that question, it directs the rest of the call. I get “nervous” as often as I get “horny”, and then I just go with the direction it leads. 

“Hey, Nick,” kind of a tentative voice. A newbie, but he doesn’t sound like it. At least he’s a newbie for me. I don’t recognize the voice. But he sounds like he might know me, so I’m listening. I’m also folding the laundry with my wireless headset on. I usually do chores while I’m working. Because of it, my house is spotless. “I’m doing well.” 

I smile immediately. I like calls that start this way. Usually, there’s a good thirty minutes in these, at least.

“Oh, yeah? That’s great. What are you up to tonight?”

“Not much. Beer, TV. Got sort of bored.” 

“So you gave me a call?”

“So I gave you a call.”

I’m silent for a few moments. It’s almost frustrating. He had already played the repeating game. I was in a corner. Does he want me shy and flirtatious, or to the point? Oh, well, I’ll find out soon enough. It was such an awkward beginning to the conversation, that I have to follow my instincts and laugh. Not at him; just an inward, nervous laugh. Shy. 

“What’s the matter?” He asks quickly, amused himself.

“Nothing, just thinking it’s lucky,” I start to fire up the bullshit. “I was waiting for someone to call. Getting sort of lonely tonight.”

“Mmm,” he doesn’t sound like he takes bullshit well. I hear him drinking, quickly, and he lets out a quick ‘ahh’ after. “Yeah, this is going like I’d have expected, then.”

“Your first time?” I decide to go for the direct approach.

“My first time calling one of these, yes,” he makes sure to specify. They always make sure to specify. I’m grinning as I abandon a yellow t-shirt mid-fold and concentrate. He talks fast. I have to concentrate. 

“I can easily say something unexpected, you know.”

“Oh yeah?” He sounds challenging, cocky. Smart, probably. “Shoot.”

“Floccinaucinihilipilification.”

He cracks up, immediately. Cute laugh. Strange laugh. “What?” 

“It’s a big word,” I shrug my shoulder.

“Definitely unexpected. Round One goes to you, Nick. That’s your real name, is it? Nick?”

“As a matter of fact, it is.” Not actually a lie, either. 

At this I’m walking around the living room, arranging the various printed pillows on my black sofa set. I went with black, but not with black leather. I wanted black leather, but I wanted a dog more. And, true to my suspicions, Wembley turned out to be a champion destroyer of furniture. 

“What’s _your_ name?” I’m being challenging right back at him, crossing my arms. 

“Matt,” he answers, almost laughing again. “God it sounds like we’re on some terrible dating show or something.”

“Like one of those MTV shows. Yeah, sort of does. Well, if you called me you called for a reason. Don’t know that it was awkward small talk,” I pause. He takes another drink, “Matt.”

“Hm,” he makes a very pleasant sound around the lip of his bottle, and I hear it pop out of his mouth before he replies, “hey now, say that again. That sounded really good.” 

Excellent. The defenses have dropped. He’s ready to brave the world of sex over the wire. “Matt.” 

“You’ve got a sexy voice.” 

“It’s a job requirement.” 

“It would seem so,” he pauses. “So what do you look like?”

I’ve never lied about my appearance. I considered it, before, but I’m too damn vain. If they don’t like what they’re seeing in their heads they can damn well hang up the phone. “Blond, kind of short. Thin. But I’ve got great arms and a great back.”

“Keep going. I like it,” I always roll my eyes a little, at that. _Of course you like it_.

I wonder what he’s into. I hate rattling off the laundry list of my physical attributes without a specific focus. “I live by the beach, so I’ve got a nice tan,” it’s only Virginia Beach, but I don’t want to ruin his idea of a California surfer boy if he has one, “long thighs, perfect arse, and the main attraction would be my big, pretty, circumsized cock.” 

“Do you really look like that?” They always ask. 

“Uh huh.” The truth goes a long way in projecting confidence. 

“I almost feel like asking for pictures.” 

“Pictures are not currently offered, I’m afraid,” I laugh coquettishly, moving toward the bedroom slowly and hugging the walls as I go. If it weren’t for my hang-ups with personal space, and the fact that I do what I do for a living, I might be a huge, unapologetic slut. I like talking about sex, I like thinking about sex, I like being sexy and making other people talk and think about sex. What can I say? It’s _fun_. 

“Tease.” 

“Not a tease at all,” at my bed, I pause and chuckle, “I’ll do anything you want me to do, right here.” 

“Then I intend to get my money’s worth.” His voice falls from sweet and amused to its own peculiar and almost alarming brand of suddenly sexy. I’m almost stunned. Some guys can’t talk this way to save their lives. 

“Good, good,” I’m fingering the hem of my shirt, waiting for him to go on, “you know, your voice is pretty sexy, too.”

“Thank you,” ahh, he might be a little vain, himself. It sounds like it. Maybe the sort of vain that never wants to admit it. That’s the most attractive sort. All that confidence but all that modesty.

“Will you tell me what you look like?” 

“Short and dark and skinny,” he answers simply, giving his beer another swig, ending on a triumphant, “ta-da!” 

I chuckle very deep in my throat. One of my secret weapons. “Don’t stop there. I’ll bet there’s a lot more to you.” 

“Not much, no.” 

“What color are your eyes?”

He pauses imperceptibly. _Didn’t expect that, did you?_ “They’re blue.”

“I love blue eyes,” I tell him, adding a quick sigh to heighten the mood. “It’s getting a little hot in here.”   
“Well, sounds like you’ll have to take off some clothes, then.” He pauses. _Here it comes…_ “Sounds so trite and cliché to ask this, but what are you wearing?” 

I quite love my wardrobe, so I always dress for the job. “Not trite at all. Most people actually don’t ask that,” I’m such a liar, but I’m a good one. “But I like to be asked. I’m wearing a plain white t-shirt. It’s really thin. Sort of tight. It’s got a low neckline. I wear it around and you can see my chest a bit, just a little. People stare.” 

“Sounds lovely,” he laughs, “are you a hairy guy, Nick?” 

“Not at all. I’ve got a little, here,” I reach in to touch it, actually, the smattering of light golden hair at the center of my chest. “It’s hard to see out of the right lighting.”

“Mmm, I love blonds.”

 _Most people do, even if they don’t want to admit it._ “That’s good. I’m blond everywhere.” With this, I take the shirt off, leaving him to think about it for a moment. I have my microphone taped securely in place, and I just let the fabric scratch over it as it goes. “There we go, one part down. I’ve got on some really tight jeans under this. Should I take them off too?”

“We’re moving kind of fast, aren’t we?” 

“Are we?” We are. I play dumb and turn to the full-length mirror I have across from my bed. It helps fuel my powers of description. I run my fingers over my belly, smiling as I wait for him to drag the conversation out. I’ve got one of those long, lean torsos, with my belly button so high above my waistline that it always looks like my pants are slung a few inches lower than they should be. Admittedly, I do wear them rather low. And at my height and weight, it’s quite easy to find slutty low rise jeans in the junior girl’s department. “Don’t chicken out, now.” 

It’s only my fourth call of the night, but already it’s my longest.

“Never,” he scoffs. “I only just met you. I want to know what you want me to do.” 

“What I want _you_ to do?” I grin wide, showing my teeth at the mirror. “Matt, I already told you I’ll do anything you want me to do.” 

“Yeah, but I didn’t call to talk to a doll. I called so someone could talk dirty to me. You know, about what you like, about things that turn you on. And now I’ve got this image of you in my mind. Can’t get it out. So if I was there… what would you ask me to do?” 

These are my favorite calls. “Really, you want to know?” String him along, keep it going, be a tease. He likes a tease, I can tell already. Moving kind of fast, indeed.

“Of course I want to know. Not many people ask you what you want?”

Again, I’m a good liar. “No. Not much. I’m used to just doing what other people want.” 

“Mmm,” I’m fueling his ego. He’s a giver. He’s a time-taker. I can always hear when someone starts to ease into the foreign task of talking with a stranger so intimately. On the phone, it’s easy to pick up on those little signals. A breath. Clearing the throat. I’m making him feel special, and now he wants to stay. “Not this time. Tell me exactly what you please.”

“Would that make you hard?” I whisper into the mic, pulling out another one of my secret weapons but swaying back and forth giddily while I do. 

“Oh, yes.” 

“You ever given head before?”

“Of course I have.” 

“You ever eaten a guy out before?” 

A pointed break. “No.” That one, it is important to point out, is almost never an ‘of course’. 

“First time for everything. So if I take off my jeans,” I turn around and open them up, pushing my pants down over my hips. I leave on the white briefs beneath, for now. I’m not quite hard yet, but I look absolutely _glorious_ in these things when I am, “and get up on the bed, would you come over here and lick my ass?” 

“You go straight for the point.” 

“Do you not want to?” I feign disappointment. “It’s a really, really nice ass. And I actually get waxed, believe it or not.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I do. I really do,” he pauses when he stops defending himself and catches up to what I’ve said, “you get waxed, you said?” 

“Uh-huh.”

He pauses. “That’s really nice. I’ve got a pretty long tongue, you know.”

“And I’m delicious, so stick it in.”

He lets out another one of those bizarre, high pitched giggles, then clears his throat. I could swear I hear him screwing a hand against his face. “Sorry, sorry. Can’t help it. I’m not laughing at you.”

“Don’t worry,” Rule 4: unless expressly told, don’t make fun of callers once the sex starts ramping up. Too volatile, too risky. It’s awkward for everyone when feelings get hurt. “I didn’t think so. You want me to say it another way?” I glance back over my shoulder as I get up onto my knees, on the bed. I scratch my stomach again, holding my tongue between my teeth as I wait for him to respond. 

When he gives me another moment, I reach down and start to pet the package between my legs. I actually limit myself, usually. I don’t like to get off for just anyone, and there’s no way I _can_ , considering the volume of calls on some nights. But every now and then, there’s that special call of the night, and I find my favorite secret weapon for keeping them in my clutches. “Mmm, maybe I can just kneel here and keep touching myself.” 

“You’re touching yourself?” He seems so surprised by this. No doubt, he’s a hardcore cynic. All of this makes him uncomfortable, because none of it makes much logical sense. Why would you do this with a stranger? But, just like the rest, he’s still a man. Mention the right thing, and there’s no turning back. Loads will be shot. My goal, though, is to draw out that crucial process. That’s why I like being a tease. 

“Of course I am. Aren’t you?”

“Not yet, no. But please, go on.” 

“Would you like to watch?”

“I’d like to _hear_ , for now, but I wouldn’t mind a little watching, no. Still trying to get up the nerve, here. I called you to do the dirty talk, I’m not good at it personally.” He says it all so fast. I blink and give my brain a few moments to understand it. 

“Well, I’ll work with you on that, then,” I’m breathing a little heavier. Turning just enough, I catch a glimpse of my cock hard and slipped perfectly into the pocket of fabric between my thigh and my hip. Such a pretty picture. I hope Dean lets me on the webcams, eventually, just to hear what people think of this. Then I never have to put in the effort again. Just gobble up the compliments and walk away with the money. On the good calls, at least. But it’s easy for me to get over the pointless insults. 

Matt, though... I wanted to give him a reason to come back. I hadn’t landed a new regular in weeks.

“Work with me? What, is this a seminar?”

“If you want me to get this over with quickly, just tell me,” I inform him gently, but as I do I’m sliding the underwear down over my hips. To get in the mood, I drag my tongue over my teeth and moan. My cock springs free. It always feels good, that little moment. “But I just got my underwear off and I think you might want to stick around.”

“Fair enough,” he’s intrigued. “Tell me more.” 

“I’m really hard,” I throw in the requisite moans here and there, “thinking about your long tongue, how good you are with your mouth. I’m not picky, you know. You can get over here and wrap your lips around my cock if you want, instead.”

He’s breathing harder, now. I hear him shifting. I pause with my cock resting patiently in my unmoving hand, giving him a few moments to get situated. 

“I’d like to do that,” he grunts. It actually succeeds in turning me on. Sometimes the job transcends acting, and it gets a little enjoyable. All in a night’s work, though. He might be repulsive, in real life, or he might be the sort of personality I wouldn’t go near on a bet. But I push that out of my mind and do my own imagining of him. Short. Dark. Skinny. That’s enough to work with that I can make him suitably attractive. “Tell me about your cock.”

Maybe you need to be vain to do this right. People ask me to tell them about my body all the time, and sometimes in very specific detail. I love being able to sell mine without having to imagine a thing. I turn toward the mirror, on one side, still kneeling on top of the bed while I pull at the length of it. Slowly, teasingly. “Should I go the same route you went? Long and pink and fat?”

He’s sharp enough not to be offended by my joke, and laughs a little at this. The short pocket of silence on the line indicates to me that he’s just been given a time notification. Has it been so long already? Not long enough. “How long?”

He’s not asking about the time. “Seven, maybe eight inches.” 

A low, humming moan at this. 

“You like that?” I prompt him, making my eyes dark and big, looking up from under my brow the way I might if he were standing right in front of me. When he lets out an ‘mm-hmm’ in response, I keep on. “Are you getting nice and hard for me? Matt? Are you going to lick my ass and then fuck me with that?”

He stammers before the word finally comes out: “No.” 

“No?” Maybe I can’t draw this one out as much as I wanted. He’s jerking madly away while I’m still going at it with long and lazy tugs. “What, do you want me to fuck you, then?”

A sharp moan tears from his throat. _Bingo._

“Oh, I’d really like that,” I lay back and open my legs up on the bed, spreading my arms up and feeling the softness of my silk duvet beneath. He’s going to come soon, but I want to make sure he does, in fact, get his money’s worth. That’s what might bring him back. So many other things to find out. Why he was so suddenly bored. Whether he’s involved. Whether he’s gay. Whether he’s married. “You wanna get fucked, is that it? Fucked hard by a big cock? I can do that. I can do that a really long time. Lay down on the bed, here, and I’ll take care of you.” 

I can’t help it. I have to know one thing. “You ever been fucked before?”

“No,” he gasps, what was potentially a secret spilling out as he draws closer and closer to orgasm. I’m smirking. I’m fascinated. I’m actually quite turned on. I love the virgins, they make me feel like a king. I’ll bet he was lying before. He’s probably never given head, either. I’ve got an image in my head, now. Shy little Matt, smart and sexy Matt, using my voice as a stepping stone to the real thing. 

“Oh, you’ll love it. I’ll make you feel so good. I’ll fuck your sweet little ass so hard, so right. Is that what you want?”

A lovely whimper comes back over the line. I smile and keep going, warm and tight between my legs. 

_Just keep going, Nick._ I tend to get dirtier as the caller gets closer. “Yeah, of course. I’ll come deep inside you. Do you want to feel that? Do you want me to shoot my load all thick and hot in your tight virgin ass?” 

“Oh, God,” he gasps for me. I gasp right back, around a smile. Licking my lips. I’m nowhere near the finish line, myself, but sometimes this feels just as good. Bringing someone to an orgasm the obviously desperately _need_. “Oh, God, yes.” 

“You going to come for me?” 

“Yes!” 

“You want to come in my mouth?”

He stops and whines, a sharp “nnn!” before his breath goes even shorter, even harder and faster. I’m fired up, now. No way to stop until he tells me to. “I want you to. I want to open my lips so you can shoot your spunk all over my face. I want to lick it off my lips and taste it and--”

“Fuck!” The interruption means it’s over. I stop talking, and I’ll bet I actually look a bit professional, waiting patiently for Matt to announce himself as I let my palm circle lazily over my cock. I wonder where he is. Just on the couch, in front of the television? I’m strangely intrigued by him, the way I try not to be. It’s something about his voice. Something about the direction of the conversation. Something about how quickly he came for me when I started on my A-game. “Oh, fuck. Fuck. That’s it, that’s great.” 

I try not to ask questions. I lay there, waiting, my free hand running up and down the middle of my chest, teasing the hair he was detail-oriented enough to ask about. I wonder if the image in his mind is near enough to what I really am. 

Immediately, I want to talk to him again. 

I’m about to open my mouth, to ask the usual question of whether he enjoyed himself, but as soon as I form the first syllable, I hear his deep, quick breath cut off. The line goes dead. He’s hung up on me.

I press the button on my headset that holds the line from incoming calls, and decide not to save this erection for anyone else. This one was Matt’s. I make quick work of it just because I need two more calls, at least, to make it a worthwhile night.


	2. Chapter 2

I never noticed blonds before. Okay, that’s not entirely true. I noticed the hot ones. I’ll notice anyone hot. But suddenly I’m standing in Giallo’s waiting for my sandwich, taking special stock of the other clientele. At my job I don’t get many chances for people-watching, so I have to take what I can get when I’m out and about. Right now there’s a redhead with too much perfume to my left, but my attention is focused on the blond who just walked in. 

My heart starts beating faster, immediately. I’m thinking of last night. Thinking of that phone call. Then my brain tries to beat it back, because that was weird and that was pathetic of me and I should have enough social skill to not let my day-to-day be invaded by thoughts of… well… a phone sex operator. Still, it made an impression. And maybe if this guy hadn’t walked in just now, I wouldn’t be staring. Is it his fault for fitting right into my mental image of the man who talked me to an orgasm last night? No, of course it’s not. But I have to direct my indignation somewhere.

He takes his sunglasses off and looks around, fingering his blond hair back into place. It’s a darker blond than the curly-haired skateboarder I was eyeing downtown earlier. And shorter. Still, he gives his head a shake and even at that length his hair manages to look _bouncy_. 

On the short side. Thin. Skinny, actually. Not far from my size, probably, but he’s also not leaving anything to my imagination. What had Nick said? Plain white t-shirt, low-cut, people stare? Really tight jeans? Well, replace white with yellow and that’s pretty much this guy right now. Staring, though. The staring is the same. The shirt isn’t very low-cut, sadly, so my eyes don’t find anything when they go searching for that little tease of chest hair. _Damn._

I glance up. He’s caught me staring. Who the Hell is this guy? He’s gorgeous. I’ve never seen him here before, that’s for sure. And I come to Giallo’s a lot. He’s looking right at me. Pretty face, but there’s this _smirk_ he’s wearing that makes me pause. I like confidence, but this smacks of something more than that. 

_Yeah, you’re hot, but don’t give me that look like you’re better than me._ What do I have to say to that, though? Nothing, really. I don’t want to waste my time, and besides, the last thing I want to do is be called out on staring at a dude when I’ve not even really decided whether or not I want that being common knowledge. In general, you know. My friends have their suspicions; the gay insinuations have been coming my way for years, and for the most part I don’t argue with them. I figure it’ll sort itself out. I certainly don’t think this random – though _extremely_ attractive – guy in Giallo’s is going to do that for me. 

We break eye contact; it’s a small blessing. I shrug out of the suit jacket I have to wear for work almost on instinct, and let my eyes sweep back over in a split-second to see if he notices. He does. I tug at my collar, too, just to make sure the tie is as loose as it should be. For an extra bit of a tease, I run my palm down over the tie. To flatten it, you know. Or for some other reason. I don’t even know right now. My brain is still full to brimming with memories of a stranger telling me to jizz all over his face. I don’t know if that’s the best memory to be attaching to a real life first impression.

And yet, I can’t help it. It’s a big crowd, so my order is taking a while. I usually take lunch at 11:00, to beat this sort of rush, but today I was stuck on a client and got moved back to noon. I don’t have anything else to do. I keep looking over at him. He’s pretending not to notice, but I can tell by the way he’s silently preening that he can feel the attention. His profile is enough to make me linger. Long neck, nose to match. _That face is just begging for--_

“James?” I snap to attention, and see that Morgan is laughing at me behind the counter. “Hey, come on! I’ve been calling you for a minute now!” 

I elbow through the crowd and reach up for my sandwich in its familiar yellow wrapper. “I couldn’t hear you, there are too many people here,” I defend myself, probably whining a bit when I do. I hate being embarrassed in public. Morgan just rolls his eyes and laughs again, asking if I want my pickle in a separate bag. As always, I do. The pickle goes to Brooke, the girl who sits next to me at work. Brooke is also my ex-fiancee. That’s a long story, but I promise you don’t want me going into it right now. All I can say is, thank goodness for long engagements. We’re still friends, and there is no shortage of jokes about how she still has no problem eating my pickle. 

I have forty minutes left. That’s more than enough, even though I may have to take the quick route back to the office. I go to my usual booth and find it occupied. I try my second choice, in the corner. There’s some woman with three kids crowding it up. Sighing, I finally go out to the patio. I don’t like eating on the patio. Wind and food don’t ever get along, in my opinion, but I have no other choice unless I want to take up a table for six on my own. 

Besides, this gives me a good chance to scope the exit for the blond who caught my eye. Not that I care. Okay, I’m lying. 

I’m almost through the first half of my meatball sub when he appears, tossing his head into the wind so that his hair moves right with it. Like it’s a natural thing, to flaunt like you’re in a shampoo commercial. He’s carrying a takeout bag with a tray settled in the bottom. Probably pasta, like most people order here. 

He’s carrying a takeout bag, and yet he goes right to a table on the patio and sets the bag on a chair. I try not to make it obvious that I’m watching, but it has me curious that he starts walking for the parking lot. There’s a sleek white Mazda sports car in the nearest spot, and part of me hopes he’s not heading for it. It would be too typical. Thankfully, he doesn’t. I turn around only once, glancing to see where he’s gotten to when he’s out of my range of vision. 

A dusty blue Jeep Cherokee. Not even a new one. It looks like a pre-2000 model. I don’t even know why I care, but it makes me feel a little better. Something about him just seemed strangely perfect, is all, so the less than perfect car adds an element of _human_ to him. 

The guy – because that’s all he is, just a guy and just a human, with a perfect face but an ugly car – comes back onto the patio with a laptop case. He’s wearing his sunglasses again. This time, he catches me looking, and flashes me a grin instead of a smirk. I resist the urge to gape at that smile, and somehow I manage to stop looking. _So many teeth… do people really have smiles like that?_

He seems to be setting up shop for a stay in the comfort of the free wi-fi at Giallo’s. He even puts his feet up on the opposite chair and pulls the computer into his lap (as intended), looking just as comfortable as if he’s at home. But I’m not staring. Definitely not. Glancing over every now and then because I can’t help it, maybe. His legs are really distracting, draped from one chair to the other, after all. 

Once I’m finished with lunch I take my glass back to the counter (I hate drinking from Styrofoam cups), where Morgan informs me: “You took Dom’s table.”

The crowd has dissipated, so I have time to stay and react. Perplexed, I pull a face, and Morgan just points back through the window. Past the slatted blinds I can see the blond gathering up his things and transferring them to the table I’d just been occupying. 

I shrug back into my jacket and try not to be obvious about what I’m asking. “So he’s another regular or something, I guess? I’ve never seen him here.”

“Don’t get all territorial,” he warns me with a laugh. “He usually comes in after you, yeah. Almost every day, some weeks. Closer to 1:00, most of the time, though. Stays for hours. I don’t know if he has a job.” 

Morgan is called away to prepare an order. I clutch my pickle bag and leave by way of the patio. The bell on the door jingles in my wake.

I’m actually not awkward, nor am I usually at a loss for what to say the people. The problem is that sometimes I say too much. Case in point, I walk by the table occupied by the man I think Morgan called Dom, and say quickly, “Sorry I took your table.” 

He doesn’t respond. I’m insulted for a few moments. Then I notice the bright blue wires leading down from his (large) ears to an iPod sitting on the table. I’m mortified, instead, and check to make sure no one else saw that before I scuttle off to my car, checking my watch just two minutes shy of the time I was supposed to be clocking back in to work. 

Brooke pretends not to notice, since I’m usually late anyway. I sigh and turn to her, and I think she’s expecting me to tell her that her pickle is in the fridge by the coffee maker, like it always is and like I always inform her.

Instead, I can’t believe that I actually hear myself saying it: “Didn’t you want the 11:00 lunch?”

She’s already gathering her things, since her break was supposed to begin about ten minutes ago. “Yeah.” 

“Do you want to switch from now on? I’ll take 1:00.”

She shrugs; it’s not a big deal to her at all. “Okay, sure. I guess.”

“Great, cool. Thanks.”

“No, James, thank _you_.” She regards me with an odd half-smile as she leaves.

As soon as she’s gone from our shared office, I just sit there looking at the screen of my computer, wondering what in the _Hell_ I’m trying to accomplish. 

\--

“Hi, there. This is Dan. Who is this?” 

I hang up immediately. Not Nick. Definitely not Nick. Even if he’s using a different name, that wasn’t his voice. For a moment I’m dismayed, thinking maybe I might not be able to get him back on the line, but the dismay turns to relief instead. _The last thing you need to be doing tonight is calling up the sex line again, much less trying to find the same guy._

I can’t help it, though. I don’t think too much about it, so I try to get some bills written and my checkbook balanced (you know… fascinating stuff) before Saturday Night Live comes on. Everything is fairly normal and boring and I’m not thinking about gay sex until I realize that Matthew McConaughey is hosting. Well, that’s pretty much all it takes. 

It wasn’t much, but I already wasted money on that call, hoping I would get Nick again. A battle of will goes on inside my head as I look at the screen. Stupid Matthew McConaughey with his stupid hair and his stupid abs and his stupid long torso. Nick told me he had a long torso. That guy from Giallo’s looks like he has a long torso, too. 

Growling, I press my hands into my face hard and scowl at the TV. Waste another two dollars, potentially, just to take one more chance? Or rub one out right here, lonely and frustrated?

I’m dialing the number quickly enough. The standard introduction plays, the prompt to put in my credit card number. I’m shaking my head as I do. I feel simply _pathetic_ because of it. There are so many better things I could be doing with my time, like going out and seeing my friends. I have a lot of friends, actually. It’s not as if I’m avoiding them. They just don’t stimulate me anymore. People are pairing off and making babies and I’m stuck behind still trying my best to live an early-20’s sort of lifestyle in my late 20’s. I still want to go do things like walk on the beach and talk about the meaning of the universe until five a.m., but my friends seem too responsible and adult to waste time like that. They’re convinced the only acceptable thing to do at our age is go to clubs between shifts at work and hang out with the same people you see every day anyway. 

Thirty minutes later, I’ve turned the TV off, rendered myself mentally rather than sexually aroused, and I’m actually telling this to Nick. 

I got him back. I never expected to get him back, and I actually gushed that when he picked up. He gave me a dazzling little laugh and told me he was glad I called again. Not the way I expected, either. He didn’t start out sexy or teasing, and even after so much time I just feel like I’m talking to someone I know. He’s effortlessly and expertly needling information from me, asking questions and probing my experiences for what they make me now. I feel comfortable opening up to him. Surely, that’s wrong. 

“I mean, you get paid to pretend you’re interested, right? I just got to feeling really sick about this whole thing. I don’t _need_ this, but I just think you’re really cool, to listen, and--”

“Hey, it’s okay!” he tells me brightly. “Some nights I don’t necessarily want to just rattle off the sex talk. This can be just as good. And yeah, I do get paid for it. It’s not like I’m denying that. But it’s cool. I’m intrigued.”

“You probably haven’t heard a word I’ve said,” I sneer, trying to sound contrary but not too bitchy.

“Hmm,” he pauses, taking that challenge, “I want to know what happened between you and Brooke. I want to know why you’re still friends. Did she go to Berkeley with you?”

“No,” it takes me a minute. I’m actually stunned that he remembers Brooke’s name, much less the name of my university. “We went to different colleges, didn’t meet until about four years ago. Um, it’s complicated. Things were always a little strange between us. We’re really good friends, but it was like we forced the sex on top of the really good friendship we would have had anyway. Brooke and I played out fantasies a lot. We did the whole sex in public thing. And roleplaying. Uh, just a lot of stuff. A therapist would have a field day, probably, saying our sex life was never that good in the first place if it took all of that. But Brooke’s main thing was always being with two guys at once.”

“I don’t know whether that’s common or not. Not much experience with females.” 

“Oh, I think it’s more common than guys ever want to admit. It’s just a matter of finding a guy who’s willing. Well, that’s where I came in,” I sit back and pull my legs up into a cross-legged position on the couch. I bite my lip for a moment before going on. “She worked with a bisexual guy, and she said they flirted a lot. She said he thought the world of me - I barely knew him! - and asked if I’d mind... you know...” 

“Yeah.” If I weren’t smarter, I’d think this actually was turning him on. 

“So I said yes. I’ll try anything once, and besides I was intrigued. I’d always been open-minded about it. Strangely so. The trick was trying to hide just _how_ intrigued I was. This guy was gorgeous. Well, apparently Brooke thought so, too. We weren’t together long before we got engaged, but she’s a lot younger than me. We all slept together, one night after drinks and dancing. I had a guy fondling me for the first time while I went down on my fiancee, you know. Sucked a little dick. No big deal. But then things got weird.”

“She left you for him?”

“No, actually! Well, not technically. I’m smart enough to know that she was chatting with him, but I trust her when she says they never did anything while we were still together. Chatting’s not cheating.” I let out a little giggle at my own wit. Quickly enough, I go on. I don’t want to draw attention to the fact that I’m such an endless source of amusement for myself. “We talked, though. She asked if I still wanted to get married, and I asked her the same. Neither of us did. Awkward talk. Then she asked if I even still wanted to date. I had to be honest - I just stopped being as attracted to her. I--” 

There’s a loud beep in my ear, and a voice tells me via recording that the call has exceeded forty minutes. I stop trying to pretend like I care how much this is costing me. I can hardly believe it anyway. I wait for Nick to speak again, once the recording is over. “You wanted to be with another man.”

His voice is smooth and deep, sultry against my ear even when he’s asking me something so personal.

“Well, yeah, that’s it I suppose.” I respond in kind, sighing slightly. I figure the conversation is wrapping up. I answered his question, I made my point. Nick’s getting an obscene amount of money from me for this, so I’m slowly becoming more eager to get what I originally dialed the phone for. Besides, my brain keeps wandering back to the first dick I sucked and the first finger up my ass, the way he pulled up to whisper “I’ll take it easy on you and stop there. Figure you don’t want me going any further.” Right when it was feeling good, he did that. 

“I don’t know if I’m one hundred per cent gay, but I’m definitely not one hundred per cent straight,” I uncross my legs, hopefully hitting the right pitch between sensual and serious. “You can help me figure it out from there.”

“Can I?” He’s teasing at first, and then he gives me a sigh that’s almost, well, _happy_. “You’re a breath of fresh air, Matt. Funny as that sounds over the telephone. Even if I do get to talk to interesting people on this job, they’re usually a lot older than I am.”

“Yup,” I don’t want us to stray too far from the appointed task, again. “I’m an interesting little dude with too much sexual frustration and not enough friends.” 

“And what is your sexual frustration telling you, right about now?” His voice. His _voice._ It sounds like comfort food tastes - familiar, warm, indulgent, probably bad for me.

Low in my throat, I give him a purr, pleased that my cock is already stirring to life at his words. “To put you on your knees and get you to suck me.” 

“Wow,” he says softly, almost so quietly I can’t hear it. A sharp, hard breath, and I hear shifting. I wonder what he’s doing, my eyes flashing back and forth as I rub myself through my pants. He doesn’t leave me too much time to speculate. “Sorry, had to get my pants off, at that. I love sucking cock.” 

“You do?” When I tried it, just once, I liked it, too. But I’m not about to distract him by telling him this.

“Mmm, yeah,” I sort of love the terribly cliche way he throws little moans into it. It might be a cheap way to give someone a thrill, but it works. “I’ve got the mouth for it. Just imagine my big, full, pouty lips smacking and sucking up and down your hard cock, tongue swiping around your head while my stubble rubs up on your thighs and your balls...”

At this part he has me panting, my hand trembling on the phone as I move to open my pants with one hand. My mind knows exactly what to conjure up, and somehow I don’t feel like a sleazy creep for imagining the stranger from Giallo’s. With his pretty mouth and his thousand-watt smile, his perfect face which, if my memory isn’t warping things too much, is a million times better than Matthew McConaughey’s. I can’t remember whether there was stubble on his face, when I saw it. Maybe it’s so blond I wouldn’t have noticed until I got close.

_Or until it scratched the underside of my cock..._

I squeeze tightly and give Nick a pointed grunt. His voice fits like a puzzle piece with the image of the stranger I only very technically met, and I’m pumping my cock steadily to the thought. Sure, it’ll be awkward to see him, the next time I take my recently re-scheduled lunch break, but it will certainly make things more interesting. I’ve been in contact with girls and guys I’ve wanted to bone before, and I rarely let it effect my behavior. However, I can’t think of a time in the past that I’ve been face to face with someone whose nose I blew my wad on in my mind the night before. 

Nick’s still going. “...get my fingers up inside of you, too. Mmm, yeah, that’s good. That’s what I’m doing in my mind right now, I’ve got your cock all the way down into my throat and I’m twisting my fingers up to find your spot. Have you ever done that? Have you ever fingered yourself?”

The way things are going, I’ll manage when I see Dom next. Nick deserves to have a face attached to his voice. “Yes.”

“And did it feel good?”

“Hell yes.” I read a book on male sexuality and learned how to give myself a prostate massage. Which sounds like it’s not a big deal, or that it’s a little bit clinical, but trust me, you aren’t thinking that if you have a prostate that’s ever been massaged. Thinking about Nick’s - Dom’s - Nick’s - lips sealed tightly around my dick while his fingers brush deep inside of me... it has my hips bowing up off the couch and into my fist, greedy to come. I look down the line of my body and admire myself. _Jesus, why am I single?_

I side-step that depressing thought, replacing any potential mopiness with sheer confidence. I’m energized and inspired by Nick’s strong expressions of self-worth, and try to mimic it to match what I’m feeling. “My cock’s dripping for you and it looks so good right now. I’m so close. It’s fucking purple and pink and it’s tight and hard as fuck, I’m so hot for that perfect fucking mouth of yours.”

“Fuck it,” he urges me, offering me the priceless sound of his own panting. I hear the wet smacking of lips as he swallows and opens his mouth near the receiver. Is he even using a regular telephone? It sounds like he’s got both hands busy with something. Maybe he’s using one of those headsets like we wear at my job when we have to call clients and - you know what, let me not think about my job for the time being. “Fuck my mouth, I want you to blow your load down my throat so I have to swallow it all.”

The thought strikes me while my ears are burning hot and the fire spreads down to my neck and the top of my chest. “Are you fingering yourself?” 

“Yeah,” Nick sounds less rehearsed than he usually does, and I find my lips actually tingling from the lack of blood flow through any part of my body other than my groin. I’m stunned to hear him like this, panting and lost in himself, forgetting to tell me things. I hear a series of three chimes. It’s been an hour. “I’m on my knees, I’ve got my forehead on the mattress and I’m jerking off with one hand and I’ve got the other one up in my ass, fucking myself. I could get a toy, make it more interesting...” He barely forces this out. It sounds like the thought excites him even more. 

I’m hearing him hurried, reckless, frenzied. He’s not a phone sex operator, in this moment. He just happens to be having phone sex with me. This man, in my mind’s eye, is a magnificent creature so physically perfect it would make the gods weep and make me give up any hope of ever being even one per cent straight again. And he’s about to come for me. 

For _me_. 

Of course, I’m very close to reciprocating that. “No, don’t leave, don’t even move. Oh, god. Oh yeah. Is your ass tight?” I fucked Brooke that way a few times, but she wasn’t overly thrilled and reserved the indulgence for special occasions. I’m trying to reconcile the dizzying squeeze of that feeling with the possibility of a hot male body on the other end. 

“Tight as can be, Matt, tight as can be. Why, you want to fuck it?” He says it so frankly, so roughly. I’m trying to keep the phone from slipping through my sweating palm. 

“Fuck,” I gasp, and push my shoulder up to hold it better, “I think I do. Don’t know which I want to do more. Fuck your mouth or fuck your ass.”

“I’m here as long as you want, Matt. You can do it all. Your cock sounds fucking amazing--” he tears away on a deep growl, and breathes heavily and quickly for a few moments. “Oh fuck,” he alerts me, “oh fuck, oh fuck, I’m going to come!” 

I always feel stupid announcing that, honestly, but it never stops me from doing so in the heat of the moment. “Me too. Where do you want it?” 

“In my ass!” He yells for me. The words are so forceful, so desperate, that they hit the back of my head like buckshot and render me incapable of doing anything but nodding, squeezing my hand tighter, screwing my eyes shut and imagining I’m thrusting into his spasming little hole. “That’s right, fuck me deeper, deeper, oh god I want you right now, I -- oh --” 

With this, he screams. It’s not over-the-top enough that it turns me off, not in the slightest. It’s exactly what a real person might sound like, the sort of fascinating and uninhibited person I’ve never had the pleasure of being with, who screams during sex and enjoys it out loud rather than retreating into her own headspace (I think I gave away who I’m thinking of, there...). No, he’s infectious. Sexually exhausting. Hot as fuck. Perfect in my mind. Big cock, ass to die for. And I’ve never even seen it. But I have. In my mind. 

“Dom!” I yell out, and pump myself through a few impressive spurts of orgasm as my moans roll and ebb and mount again, cascading over my lips like the come over my fingers. 

My head is a mess of buzzing and throbbing, blood pumping through it intensely as I take frantic gulps of air, until I’m bobbing at the neck in quiet recovery. A smile is on my lips until it’s been almost a minute, and I say “Hey...?” with a timid voice. 

I realize there’s no one on the other line. 

And then I remember that I called him Dom.


	3. Chapter 3

Not much rattles me. I mean, I’ve had people talking about some really twisted shit on the phone. But I know where sexual fantasy stops and real life starts again, and it’s usually around the time when all the chemicals even back out after orgasm. All the threats of violence and the scathing insults are water off my back.

But being called by my real name… that’s another matter. The anonymity is shattered. I’m worried now. I’ve run out of Coke and I’m drinking rum straight. As in, straight from the bottle. It’s three hours later, I’m still not entirely convinced that I simply misheard him. No, Matt called me “Dom”, plain as day. His voice was breathy and sharp, and I was listening very closely. I keep replaying it while I try to find something I’m willing to be distracted by. Trying to force the disconnect is the hardest part. Until it really hit me, I loved it. For a minute or two I was talking to him as myself, and that was my own fault. It felt real, it felt natural, and I try to never let myself make that mistake. So when he called me Dom, the most distasteful thing was forcing Matt back into the box of “customer”.

Wembley jumps up on my lap while I’m still sat on the couch, just _thinking_.

“Do you think he knows who I am, boy?” I ask him, feeling his hot breath against my stomach as he tries to settle into a comfortable position. He pants up at me, his ears twitching a little. It’s like he’s saying _it’s the weirdest coincidence ever, if he doesn’t_. Nodding, I sigh. “Yeah, I know. It’s fucked up, isn’t it?”

I scratch his head, rubbing over his ears vigorously just to hear the flopping sound they make when I do it. Wembley does that whining thing he does, burying his face against my leg and rubbing his front paws on his face. He makes me smile. He’s a good dog. “Maybe I should take a few days off,” I keep talking out loud. “I’ve never done that. Rosie’s going to know something’s wrong, but I think it would be best. To let it blow over. If someone’s going to be stalking me, they’ll need to be more overt about it.”

The idea of having a stalker makes my skin crawl, but it’s so hard to fit Matt’s voice to anyone I would normally label a stalker. The worst I can imagine is a sort of wormy guy, but I don’t want to. I don’t like trying to imagine what my callers look like, after the fact, because that’s what starts to burrow in my brain and make me feel dirty and used. I had such a good image of Matt, too. But that image definitely does not fit with the possibility that he’s invading my privacy, somehow.

I call Rosie up early the next morning. The situation is presented easily; I’m a good actor, after all. I just tell her I need a few days off, and she tells me to take all I need.

As usual, I’m taking out my frustrations at the gym by noon. I’m exhausted but also strangely invigorated, moving from machine to machine and, for once, paying more attention to other people than my own reflection. This gym is full of military meatheads and bulky juicers, so I’m unable to find any likely candidates for someone who might stalk me. Little by little, it begins to sink in that maybe I’ve been the one at fault, leading up to this. I flaunt myself like royalty, really, but that’s just in my nature. My mom brought me up that way, and my dad never did much to dissuade it. I was always popular in my own way, even if I wasn’t strictly _social_. Someone was always watching my back, even when I didn’t ask for it.

One time (and I remember this as I’m reaching my twelfth minute on the treadmill, because guys who work out only for the weights are, quite frankly, meatheads), after starring in a performance of _Equus_ at the local community college, I went to the cast party. That party did not go well, considering a bunch of Navy douchebags crashed the place and ganged up on me, calling me whatever you might imagine. I’ve never been very confrontational, so I tried to walk away, but that wasn’t happening. They were intent on a fight.

Sweeping in to rescue me was a dude named Kaleb that I met during the party but forgot about just as quickly. He’d seen me in the play and fell for me immediately. Kaleb and I had spoken maybe four words, but he almost went to blows with those bastards before they decided it wasn’t worth their time and left. I wasn’t necessarily attracted to him, but I was flattered, and grateful. We kept each other company for the weekend, hung out a little, and made out for the hell of it, but we never spoke again. Still, it was a prime example of the way I tend to be totally oblivious to the fact that people are checking me out.

It does nothing, however, to explain how Matt could have possibly known what I do for a living. Not counting my friends and the asshole kid next door who has now graduated to shouting homophobic epithets at his asshole friends when they visit, I’m quite secretive about that. I’m quite secretive about everything, really, so it just makes me paranoid that Matt could be someone closer to me than I will ever be able to live down.

After the gym, I head to Giallo’s. It’s a boring, tired routine, but I have little going for me other than routine. Without routine I fall into bad habits, like spending too much money or eating entire cheesecakes in an afternoon (I have done this). Getting out of the house keeps me from being lonely, and gives me the opportunity to flirt quietly and easily with anyone who looks a little too long.

Speaking of which - I notice as I set up at my usual table - that guy is back. The one I was sizing up a couple of days ago. He seemed so twitchy and uptight to me at first, but everything seems different today. He’s got his jacket off, again, and this time his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. He’s put-together. He’s sort of cute. I think back to the looks he was giving me, when I saw him first. I’m trying to pin him down as checking me out or judging me. Either one looks like it might be a fit, really, so I can’t make any assumptions. He glances over at me quickly.

Something’s strangely attractive about him, and I try in my usual way not to act like I’m staring while he’s eating. That’s rude in any situation, and besides, in case he _was_ judging me, I don’t want him to have a reason to judge me further. Giallo’s is my domain, though. If he doesn’t like me, he can stop eating here. I’ve been an almost-daily regular for eight months. Yes, that’s selfish. But it took time to stake this claim.

I get up for a refill, and pass by his table. While I’m inside waiting on Morgan to replenish my supply of lemonade, the doorbell chimes behind me. I turn around and the stranger is inside, fixing his eyes on me and smiling slightly. There was a smile. This is good. It probably means he was checking me out, before. I turn back around and start drumming on the counter a little nervously. Here’s where I always fall apart. Proud as a peacock, yes, and well aware that I have power over people, but I have no idea what to do when it comes to actually striking up a conversation. Ironic, isn’t it? I work in the business of conversation, sexual or not, but in person I prefer that all my communication be non-verbal.

He slides his empty tray up onto the counter next to me, and when he does I’m hit by something I did not expect. That _smell_. The unmistakable and intoxicating aroma of Acqua di Gio, no less than my favorite cologne in the history of the world. I breathe in deeply and even close my eyes. Morgan’s back is still turned, but the stranger moves away before I can say anything.

That’s it. I have to say something. He smells _exquisite_ , that’s almost a deal-maker. Unfortunately, he’s heading for the restroom, and that would be the most socially awkward way to interrupt someone for any reason, much less to make a move. So, I’m determined to get him when he walks back out. Yup, that’s it. I’ve made my mind up. I’m going to try and do something about it. Morgan hands me the refilled cup, and I thank him, hanging around.

“Who’s that?” I whisper over the counter. Though Morgan isn’t used to me looking for dates in his restaurant, he’s well aware of which gender I might be looking for if I did.

“James,” he says simply, and turns without a word to speak to a customer at the register. I nod and continue to sip my drink. My nerve is getting up where it needs to be, and I smile around the straw thinking of how I’m going to talk to him. I’ll ask him about his cologne, I figure. Even though I know very well what it is, if I play ignorant it might be the right way to start a conversation I can actually be comfortable with. I’m confident. I’m cool.

Now, the sad part about having a regular public haunt is that people know where to find you. So, while acting interested in the community bulletin board and waiting for James (nice name, and definitely it’s not ‘Matt’) to re-emerge, I’m sadly interrupted by a familiar voice shouting: “Hey, you!”

It’s Michelle and Fred. Now, Fred’s a girl, but her name is Mary Freida. She hates the name ‘Mary’ so sometime in high school her friends started calling her ‘Fred’ instead, and it stuck. I know all too well how nicknames can stick, especially around these two. “How’s my man?” Michelle hugs me warmly and I chuckle.

While we’re greeting each other and noticing new haircuts, I’m dismayed to see James slip away through the front door, the chime signaling his departure. More than anything, I hope he doesn’t assume that my closeness with the girls indicates any romantic attachment. I’ve definitely seen misunderstanding occur over less.

They ask me what’s wrong. I say nothing. They ask if I want to go see the new James Franco movie with them. I say yes, of course. Not the same James, but close enough, and much more accessible for the time being.

Much like routine, fantasy dictates much of the normal pattern of my life. I read a lot, and sometimes it seems like I watch more than anyone’s fair share of television. So my imagination tends to run away with me even in real situations. I’m going to go the easy route and say that’s some byproduct of being an actor. Sometimes, especially when I’m feeling lousy, I’ll just wear my best outfit, tell myself I’m a superstar, and enjoy the feeling that no one can get to me. Then, at home, I’ll get lost in some fictional world and go to bed happy. Not what you expected, probably. Not what anyone expects from an attractive and moderately social gay man in his twenties, but there you have it. Life is too boring for me, sometimes.

So, as usual, I’m imagining ways my life could be better as I’m boiling up some water for ramen later that evening. I’ve got a TLC album playing on the sound system and I’m wondering who this guy from Giallo’s is. James. Not Jim, but James. Probably a professional, by the lack of a nickname and the state of his wardrobe. He wasn’t wearing anything obscenely expensive, no, but he was well dressed enough. I’m imagining a law office or an accounting firm, and then I’m imagining things that are sexier and less everyday. Detective. Entertainment agent. I like my men unrealistically smart, though, so while I’m on a jag of projecting my fantasies I decide to go all out.

Maybe James graduated Berkeley with a degree in foreign languages, and maybe he speaks Spanish, German, Mandarin, Arabic, and Swahili to varying degrees of fluency because he wanted to learn one of each main language classification. Maybe he works for some corporation as a high-level translator for their foreign accounts division. Maybe he would apply to work for the military or the FBI if he wasn’t horribly paranoid about that sort of thing.

I pause with the saucepan of water poised above my freeze-dried noodles, realizing with a sigh that I just ran down the details Matt told me about his occupation. “Get him out of your mind, you’re heading down a weird road,” I scold myself, and finish preparing my meal.

But every time I imagine James opening his mouth, Matt’s voice is coming out. It’s distracting and it’s frustrating, and not even a new episode of _Supernatural_ can cheer me up, not that I expected it to. It is _Supernatural_ , after all. By late evening I’ve realized what a boring and empty day it’s been. Moreover, I realize that seeing James was the highlight of my day, and not getting to speak to him was also the biggest disappointment. In light of distraction, then, my first recourse is more distraction.

I masturbate a lot. I don’t know whether that comes as a shock to you, but the way I figure I’m not saving myself for anyone else, I’m secure enough to indulge my overactive imagination, and I’m quite enamored with my own body. I’ve never been ashamed of it, and I’ve always enjoyed all the things it can do. It helps with my job, too. Fortunate, to have a commanding knowledge of your own physical reactions, desires, and capabilities. It makes for a livelier conversation. And, more than once, I’ve been stopped mid-sentence by a caller who didn’t believe I could actually put my leg behind my head.

Things are notably tamer tonight. There are no acrobatics as I bend down low on the bed, reaching behind to slide the vibrator in and out of my body. When I turn my head enough I can see my own reflection, doing it. I love that mirror being there. Sometimes, though, I’m worried that I don’t look nearly as good to other people as I do to myself. Not that I really, truly give a fuck, but I’m beginning to doubt my ability to captivate a stranger enough that he’s willing to put up with my shyness. Shyness. It’s almost a laugh. Even as I’m contemplating this entirely real-life concern, the other pole in my brain is imagining what it will be like to work the webcams.

My main misgiving is that someone won’t have the right connection and everything will come out choppy and low-res. I’ve put a lot of care into my movements, recently, the way I used to strip-tease for no one and wish I was confident enough to be a dancer. Even my transition as I turn over to my side and keep fucking myself is fluid, practically perfection.

I can’t wait to hear someone breathe in hungrily when he sees my cock for the first time. I can’t wait to tease customers by licking my index and middle finger before circling them coyly on a nipple. Pursing my lips and closing my eyes, opening my mouth so they can see the shape it makes when I say “fuck me.”

“Fuck me,” I say it, a sweet note to my voice as I grab my cock with the other hand. I’m moaning louder, and it’s obvious how much I love even the speculative elements of my job as I pump myself hard, talking as if I’m already being filmed. “You want to see me come for you? Tell me you want to see it.”

I pull the toy out and set it aside, moving completely onto my back and arching up to make gentle waves out of my body, meeting every stroke from my hand. It’s almost like ballet to me, now. Some people say it inhibits the sexual mind, to be completely focused on giving a show, but it actually helps me along. As I pant and turn my hot cheek against my shoulder, focusing deeper and wishing to be watched, I feel like I don’t have a care in the world. It’s all about pleasure, it’s all about happiness. Acting doesn’t even enter into it. This is just who I am. This is the real me. I wish I could go by my real name, for the cameras.

Maybe I will.

My body tenses a little and I’m smiling as I feel the come land low on my chest, just above my stomach and trailing down. They’d be lunatics not to put me on film. I’ve got a delicious body and a cumshot I’ve been practicing and perfecting for the last fifteen years. I work out, I tan, I even get myself waxes on the off chance that I might take someone home one lucky night.

It won’t be the same, though. I know it won’t. When I finally get laid again, I can’t imagine it being half as good as what I do alone. In a way, I consider even my less pleasant customers my partners, in that sense. That one time a night when I get off is the highlight. Having to roll the dice on one person just seems too potentially disappointing, somehow. Pessimistic? I don’t know, exactly. I’m happy enough alone.

I’m happy to be fonding my soft cock lazily after coming, blinking with the other arm tucked behind my head, imagining the perfect man. It’s not my fault that James is the image that keeps flashing again and again. I roll my eyes. I’m smart enough to be aware that preoccupation can lead to projection. Besides, my perfect man is currently Jude Law circa 2003. Regardless, I’m slipping further toward a post-masturbatory nap, and I don’t mind so much that I’m wondering what James might look like naked. Good, I’ll bet.

I lick my lips and sigh with my eyes closed, failing to check myself before I softly whisper “Matt...”

My eyes snap open at first. I know I should feel weird about that. I know I should feel violated and confused and as rattled as I did last night after Matt’s little slip of my name. Somehow, though, I don’t. Maybe it’s the chemicals still hanging around in abnormal doses from my little jaunt. Or maybe it’s just that, deep inside, somewhere beyond the thought of cameras or callers or getting back on the phones as soon as possible, I was beating off a few minutes ago while secretly wishing I had a sexy, shy, and unrealistically intelligent man spying on the one part of my life I don’t necessarily feel the need to keep private.

It’s a fantasy like all the others. The fact that it’s dangerously close to home at present? “Fuck it.” I shrug one shoulder and close my eyes again.


	4. Chapter 4

“Tell me what you are.” 

I’m back on the phone again. 

“I’m a filthy fucking whore.” 

Oh, and this time I’ve gotten right to the point. 

“Really, Nick? Are you going to do as you’re told?” 

No awkward apologies. No regrets. I’ve put away so much Bacardi that I barely even remember why it took me so long to call him back in the first place. I suppose he’s used to people calling him other names, but somehow it still felt like a betrayal. Also, he hung up on me. Or maybe it was an accident. Or maybe there’s a time cap, but why would there be? I’m too embarrassed to ask whether any of the possibilities are the truth. On top of that, I still have no idea how to say word one to the gorgeous blond at Giallo’s. I like to think I’m getting there, though. I saw him at the cafe earlier in the evening, actually, when I went there after leaving the salon. If I’d just been sporting a new haircut, this would have been no big deal. But while at the salon I’d been gripped by the inexplicable urge to ask my regular girl, Lisa, whether they gave wax jobs to guys. 

Her face was priceless, and so was the unrestrained glee when she said “yes.”

I went back and forth on whether or not I’d actually been serious. Finally she had me convinced that more and more men were receiving the treatment these days, and after one quarter of an excruciating hour, I was rendered highly unfit to sit down and in dire need of a drink. My brain clicked into the groove convincing me that I was ready to go and try to find someone, anyone, to sleep with, but of course my brain was also subconsciously making me drive directly to Giallo’s for a beer with dinner. One beer turned to three whilst I chatted about politics with Morgan, and all the while Dom was sitting right outside the door, on the patio as the sun set, reading a book this time instead of busy on his laptop. I wanted to ask what he was reading, but it seemed far too obvious. Everything seemed far too obvious. And, it stands to reason, if I’d been in the business of being obvious, I’d have gone right up to his table and said “look, I just got my ass waxed, so I sort of want to show that off. I’ve wanted to fuck you since I saw you, can we just get out of here?” 

Maybe it was the alcohol just barely starting to affect me, but I could swear he kept looking over at me through the window. Wishful thinking, Bellamy. Stop it. 

Once home, I reached for the phone, substituting one blond fantasy for another, and momentarily forgetting that I’d let the two cross paths out loud last time I’d been on Nick’s line.

But he hasn’t mentioned that once, yet. I also didn’t tell him it was me. Maybe he’s forgotten. I sort of hope not, at the same time I hope so. 

“I’m on my knees.” 

“Yeah?” 

“I’m begging for your cock.”

“Are you? I don’t hear anything like that.” 

He moans, gorgeously. “ _Please_ , please let me suck your cock.”

I do like to hear that, no matter the situation. “What if I don’t want to be nice?” I tease him, spreading my fingers past the break of my zipper.

“You don’t have to be nice, if you don’t want to,” I can hear that he’s on his bed, the way fabric brushes over the receiver and I hear the shift and shuffle of sheets (if it’s even his bed - I’ve always wondered, do phone sex operators work in their houses, or do they have an office or something? Excuse me for being woefully ignorant on the subject). 

“I’m going to be a total bastard and tell you to get the fuck off the bed and get down on your knees for real.” 

He pauses. I swear he’s smiling. A few moments, and I hear more shifting. Then, a whisper. “And now what?”

“Open your mouth wide for me.” 

Lisa asked if I wanted her to do my front, too. It already hurt enough, I told her, and there was no way I was letting her anywhere near the rest of it. Besides, I’d never had a problem with the rest of it. Sitting with my balls in my hand, I’m just grateful that Nick is willing to play around and indulge my dominant side a bit. The only struggle is ignoring my hard-on until the time is right. 

“Consider it open.” 

“Beg again.” 

“Please put it in my mouth.” He sounds breathless; obviously an affectation, but a very effective one. With a quick moan, I let my fingers flutter up and hover over the head of my cock. “I want to taste it.”

I let him. Filthy words come tumbling from my mouth far more easily than ever before, in all my years of flailing through dirty talk with girls. I wondered, shortly after my first call to Nick, whether it was just gender familiarity, whether I was confused in any way. Then I realized, after days between calls, that was certainly not the case. I didn’t know what I was - hetero-, homo-, bi-, pan-, whatever - but I was smart enough not to try and figure it out. All I know now is that I want him. I want _him_ specifically, or maybe both hims. The Nick inside of my mind that becomes Dom whenever I close my eyes and squeeze my cock and imagine pulling away those ever-present black sunglasses so he can look up into my eyes while he sucks me off. 

I’m still stroking myself as slowly as I can, imagining long and tight passes from his mouth and the hot wetness of his tongue pressing and moving against me. He’s describing these very things in unimaginable detail. He goes far enough that he invites me to imagine my cockhead caught at the back of his tongue by the tight opening of his throat. Then he tells me to start fucking his mouth. 

Somehow, I don’t want to go just yet. Too easy, too quickly. I can afford to spend the time I want to spend. I think, maybe, I’m building up the courage to do something else, maybe to _say_ something else. “Not now. Not yet. Save that beautiful throat of yours. Right now I want to switch places with you.” 

“You do?” He purrs, and by the sheer tenor of it I can’t help thinking he’s stroking himself already. “You want to suck me? You want to be my little cocksucker?” 

Sometimes it doesn’t matter how absurd the words would be out of the context of sexual abandon - that’s the entire point of sexual abandon. Almost everything we say while we’re naked and getting off would sound ridiculous in normal conversation, much less arousing. Yet somehow, when he calls me a cocksucker, it turns something on in me. Yes, I want to be that.

“I’m not going to beg, though,” I decide to bait him just a little more. 

“Oh, that’s just fine. You can tie me to the fucking bed if you want, do whatever you want to me. Just get those lips around me, bitch.”

Who is the dominant one, again? I don’t much care. He sounds exquisite saying the word ‘bitch’, enunciating so I can almost hear the sneer on his lips. Nothing quite like a mouthy submissive, after all. And it all comes down to mouths, for us. Talking, sucking, riling, teasing. It’s all in the artful play of tongues and lips. And that’s all we have. Nick breathes deep and sighs into the receiver for me. It sends a chill right down my whole body. I tighten my hand and murmur his name - his real name. 

“Nick.” 

“I like the sound of that. Go on, tell me how you do it.” 

I’ve made it my life’s ambition to suck this man’s cock. Even if it’s a fantasy projection, even if I have to tell my next lover to be quiet so I can transplant Nick’s voice over the scene in my mind, I know I won’t be able to get it out of my mind. The other day at lunch I caught myself staring at Dom while I was eating my lunch at Giallo’s, because the bastard happened to be sitting with his legs wide open in those sinfully tight jeans of his, leaned back and reading. I’ve become a man obsessed. I want to see him naked, the way a twelve year old boy wants to see his first real life boobs. Just as pathetic and just as excited, I was searching Dom’s crotch for contours and relief, and only when I saw him shift and thought he might catch me did I realize what I was doing. Embarrassing doesn’t even begin to describe it, but the embarrassment mixed well enough with the excitement that it was worth it. 

I almost _fear_ my conquest. I fear that he’ll be dull, not nearly as affable and interesting as Nick is - or at least pretends to be. I fear that he’ll be self-centered and arrogant, and not in the charming way my telephone lover manages it. I’ve only talked to him three times, but already I can’t get him out of my mind. He talks to me so well. He had me coming back even after my gaffe, simply because I looked at Dom in Giallo’s, sighed to myself, and thought of how disappointing it would be to open up the zipper on those skinny black jeans and have to fake being impressed. I’ll never call him Dom again. That’s just a placeholder, the way you see an actor in a movie adaptation and it invades your consciousness from then on, whenever you read the book. Still, in your mind, buried deep, you know your imagination has its own image. 

I curse myself for wanting him so much, and it comes out in a frustrated grunt as I play with my twitching cock. I’m still waiting for something. “Fuck!” 

“You’re real good at this. Real good at sucking cock. Look at me with your pretty blue eyes while you do it,” I wonder how much practice it took before he perfected that sound, like he was really in the throes of a fantastic blowjob. I find my tongue keeps pushing up against my palate, wondering why it’s not full of his heat and hardness. “Take it deeper. Yeah. That’s good. I love the way you make me feel.” 

Maybe I have a latent sentimental side that goes hand-in-hand with my dominant side, but it jolts me into a sharp moan when he says this. 

“Do you want me to stop?” He asks. “Do you want me to fuck your cherry ass?”

I still do, yes. In my mind, we still haven’t yet. The first time, I was concerned with coming in his mouth. He never got as far as doing anything but telling me about how far he would go, how wild he would lead me. There’s a strange set of rules to phone sex, I’ve found in this short while, and somehow I know that even in his mind he hasn’t actually fucked me yet.

“Don’t come yet,” he almost laughs after I gasp and pant in response to this. I can’t help stroking my cock tighter now. I don’t know how much longer I’ll last, no matter what I do. Having all that attention paid to those places earlier in the day is finally fading from pain and turning into a tingling, needy feeling. I wonder how it would feel to have him rub his hand slick with lube in the smoothness there, to stretch me out with his fingers and then-- “Do you want it?” 

I wouldn’t last. I can’t last. I’m fucking my fist hard and just wanting to hear more of his voice. “Later. Not now. Fuck me later. Talk to me.” 

“So you want me to just shoot off in your mouth? You really want that? Sweet little nasty cocksucker, you only do this for me, right?” 

“Mm-hmm,” I force it out, locked in concentration, eyes closed and speeding toward orgasm. 

“Does it make you hot? Does it make your balls tight, thinking of my fingers in your hair while I come hard in your throat? Are you almost there? I’m almost there. I’m going to wreck that sweet mouth of yours, Matt,” his voice gets deeper as he gets closer. Sly, suggestive, so smooth and sexual that I can’t hold it any longer. And finally, he calls me Matt. That’s all it takes. My secret name not even my family calls me, like the side of me that still hasn’t come out completely. 

“Oh god! Oh, god, fuck _me_...!” I come for him with my mouth open. I’m still reacting in a panting mess of nondescript single syllables, slumped back against the couch while I hear Nick growling and panting his way into a well-deserved release. A month ago I don’t know that I would have even admitted to a desire to suck another man’s cock. Now I want to lick down his shuddering chest and clean every drop from his skin, meticulously working through curly blond hair and over the length of his thick flesh as it goes soft. 

“You knew it was me,” I finally say, after the silence stretches on and I’m back to a facsimile of reality. It’s almost a question, but the question would have been stupid, considering how obvious the answer is.

“Of course,” he grunts a little, probably reaching over for something while the rest of his body stays too spent and brick-heavy to move. “You’re probably my favorite.” 

I don’t know how to say it. I take a deep breath. My head’s swimming and I know I’m prone to say any number of stupid things on my mind as long as orgasm is greasing the rails. It could come out any way, but I’m willing to take the risk of sounding stupid. “Um, about last time. I’m sorry about last time.” 

Brooke told me I get way too emotional in bed. Maybe that’s where the dominant side comes from. I try to make up for it, because it’s true. I turn into a foolish sap. The cynic melts right away and I start believing in fundamental goods, even about myself. Obviously that’s whether or not I actually have someone in my arms. 

“Last time?” It sounds like he knows what I mean, but wants me to confirm it. If I’m not mistaken, which I might be, he also sounds a little scared of the topic. 

“I called you someone else’s name,” and then I chuckle. “I’m sorry. That sounds so lame. I’m just... you hung up. I felt pretty awful. After all that, I go and--” 

“Someone else’s name?” He sounds shocked, somehow. I don’t know what to figure, so I go on. Maybe he forgot all about it, I think. Maybe I’m being paranoid, worried for his feelings when it didn’t even bother him for a moment. 

“Yeah...” I want to drop the subject. “Some other person. Someone I--” everything sounds pathetic and adolescent. _‘Someone I like’. ‘Someone I want to ask out’. ‘Someone I see every day but don’t have the guts to talk to’_. I clear my throat. “Just some guy, I mean.” 

He pauses a few moments before responding. I notice a change in his voice, and it’s not just that he’s coming off a sexual high. He sounds chipper, almost relieved by something. I’m too busy feeling awkward to really analyze it, though. “I see. That’s all right. It happens.” 

“Nice to hear that. It sort of ruins the mood, in real life.” 

“Hey,” the sheets shift again as he shrugs. I wonder when he got back on the bed. Was it when I told him to switch places? Did he really want me to tie him down? I’m too tired to be turned on again by this. Not so soon. “I get it. It comes with the job. People have called me women’s names, before. I’m not blaming you for anything. I’d practically forgotten it.” He sounds convincing on everything but the last bit.

“But I don’t want you thinking I’m just calling you up for the sex.” I immediately feel like a complete loser. I even drag my hand over my face, regretting the words as soon as they’ve escaped. Groaning, I hear him chuckle softly at me. “No, that sounds so pitiful. I’m not that lonely, I promise. But you’re very _real_ , is all I mean. Maybe I’m just projecting.” 

“Hey. Matt,” he stops chuckling abruptly. “That’s what we _do_ , as humans. And that’s sort of what a sex line is all about. Sure, some people are unimaginative and just call to get off, but the pleasure of talking to a real life person is that I’m happy to play into your fantasies. Maybe I sort of respect you, too, from what I know about you. I’ll let you project on me as much as you want.”

I can’t help laughing. He actually knows more about me than most friends I’ve made in the last couple of years. “Thanks for being such a romantic.”

“I’m not kidding!” He laughs along with me, at least. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” 

We both come down for the burst of laughter with a shared sigh. “Well, thanks.” I don’t know why I’m feeling so grateful. Maybe because, in the back of my mind, I had been struggling with a strange feeling like I had been _cheating_ on Nick since my slip. Also, perhaps because I’m just a pathetic, sentimental dork underneath all the swaggering. “Ever considered starting an advice hotline?” 

“I think that’s half of what I do, really. As a matter of fact, that keeps me doing it. Not the sex,” he sounds confidential, like I’ve coaxed a revelation with my question. I tuck my dick back into my boxers and settle in, unconcerned with being messy for the time being. “So go ahead, ask whatever you’d like. What do you need advice on?”

“How do you talk to someone?”

He snickers. “Obviously not dirty talk, you’re great at that.” 

“I’ve always been moderately good at it, yeah,” I sheepishly shake my head, not about to contradict him. I’m nowhere near as good as he is, but I do my best to wet my share of underwear with whispered words. “No, I mean, just... people. Guys. How do you talk to a guy, for the first time?” 

“You never have?”

“Not like that, no.” No shame. He already told me not to be ashamed. It’s easier said than done. My heart’s beating fast, just entering into the arena of conversation over my insecurities. Especially thinking about Dom. It’s like I can’t even approach his table at Giallo’s, can’t come within a two foot radius of it without feeling like an unworthy spectator unworthy of conversation. Why, I have no idea. 

“Well, it’s all about confidence. Even if you have to just fake the confidence. What sort of guy is it, that you want to talk to?”

With a sigh, I try to do my best in describing him. “Well, he seems really confident, is the thing. I’m pretty confident, myself, but that’s a really weird area. It’s like, with girls it’s different, you know? They expect it. I don’t know how I’ll feel if I get rejected by another man, though. And he’s quiet. I haven’t heard him talk yet, even, and I see him everyday.” 

“Where? At work, or...?”

“At this cafe I go to. I even changed my lunch so I could see him everyday, but now I feel like a real creeper because I haven’t even gotten up the nerve to talk to him yet.” 

The silence stretches on. I’m frightened that the line disconnected or, even worse, that he’s hung up on me again. “I see,” he finally says, with an odd weight to his voice suggesting something. But what? I don’t know whether he sounds approving, or just thoughtful. 

“Yeah, and worst thing is, I first saw him right about when I started talking to you, so I only noticed him because of that. I never paid attention to blonds, before,” I debate over whether to say what’s next on my mind, and right when I know I’ll miss my chance if I don’t go on, I just clench my teeth, close my eyes, and say it. “He looks like what I imagine you look like.” 

“That’s--” 

“Creepy, I know.” 

“Not exactly,” mysterious, that tone of voice. “It’s interesting. You seem smart enough to know the difference between fantasy and reality, otherwise you might be one of those weirdos who demands that I only answer to a certain name. That’s when it gets weird. No, you accept that I’m a different person, but that doesn’t make it strange.” 

I don’t respond right away. I’m still trying to come up with the words. And he still hasn’t given me any advice. Is he just trying to get the best mental picture in his mind that he could? Or is he milking the money from every minute?

He goes on before I can wonder too much. “Maybe he’s interested in you, too. You never know when people have the same hang-ups. Someone you think is ultra-confident might actually be that way to make up for being lonely or shy. You never know. Saying hello is the hard part. But you were brave enough to make this phone call, weren’t you? To talk to another man sexually, on your own, for the first time?” 

Somehow, he’s right. “I suppose. But I just feel like a fucking teenager, because we’re not in school together and we don’t work together, so I don’t know any way to start a conversation that seems appropriate. And even then, we’re both adults. He should figure out what’s up, and then I run the risk of being shut down.” 

“I’ll tell you what. I want you to talk to him next time you see him. Just say whatever. Ask him if you can borrow a napkin, or comment on how hot it is outside, something like that. Anything. No matter what happens, you’re not going to be losing much. And if it doesn’t work, I want you to call me up. We can talk about it.”

“Easy for you to say, you get paid to talk about it,” I laugh to let him know I wasn’t accusing him, but he couldn’t be blind to the irony, there. Get rejected? Fine! For a two dollars a minute, you too can talk away your blues! If only all phone sex operators sold themselves as well as Nick did.

“Well,” he says, with that same strange tone of voice, “let’s just say I don’t think you’ll have a problem.” 

Right when I’m about to comment on how odd it was for him to phrase it that way, and ask whether he knows something I don’t, I hear the unmistakable yapping of a dog. “What’s that? I mean, I know it’s a dog, but--” 

“That’s just my pup,” he laughs and I can hear the scuffling of nails on a tile floor. Nick’s voice is radiant with happiness. “I went downstairs while we were talking, and he just woke up,” at this, he regresses into higher-pitched animal talk. “Isn’t that right, eh? How’s it going, Wembley?” 

“Your dog’s named Wembley? Like the stadium?” 

“Exactly like that, yeah. Queen, live at Wembley, best concert DVD ever.” 

I laugh. “I love Queen.” 

“That’s fantastic,” he drawls this, like it means more than I know, but he’s still smiling into the phone. Then, he pauses. “Do you feel up to the task tomorrow?” 

“I think I do.” 

“Have I done my job well tonight, oh my dear master?” He’s joking, but it still sounds luscious, those words on his lips. Like we’re friends, and almost like we’re lovers. Comfortable enough to joke about it already. “Sorry, I also have a lot of fun doing the submissive thing.” 

“Don’t apologize, that’s...” I rub my eyes. I’m getting tired, like he bled the worry from me enough to allow for a window of resting. “That’s fucking hot.” 

“Your voice is fucking hot.” 

I laugh proudly. Yeah, I can safely say my confidence is where it should be. “Thank you. You did great.”

“Glad to hear it.” 

“I’ll let you go now, then. Go have fun with your dog.” 

“Don’t know I like the way that sounds,” he smirks, and I can’t help tilting my head back to guffaw. 

“Not like that! I think you know what I meant! Like... I don’t know, playing fetch or something.” 

“Well, somebody does need a walk,” he admits with a sigh. 

“Get to it. Can I call you tomorrow?” 

“Anytime, Matt. Anytime.” 

I wake up early and take the time to dress in my favorite outfit for work, combing fingers meticulously through my hair in an effort to make it look as sexy as possible, somewhere between messy and styled, fluffy and sleek. When I get to the office, Brooke actually applauds my efforts. “You look straight-up gorgeous,” she tells me with a laugh. “How come you never used to dress that way?” 

“For your information, I plan on asking someone out today,” I tell her proudly as I begin to check my email, sorting the new messages into folders for our different global regions. We both work the foreign language support division. Between us, our department has all of the world covered. I’m in charge of Korea, Germany, and our small Afrikaans market, while Brooke keeps her hands full with the Italian and Latin American clients. 

Brooke tries her best not to seem jealous through the rest of the day, and between calls we’re joking like we always do about the usual badly-written client complaints. I’m breezing through everything, talking calls in stride, wondering if Nick might like it if I try to talk dirty to him in German. It’s an acquired thing, after all. Then I’m wondering whether Dom would like it. Then I tell myself I’m getting far too ahead of my own game. Then, before I know it, it’s time for lunch. 

“You can keep the pickle today,” Brooke tells me on my way out, “I brought some caprese from home.” 

“Thanks for that.” I nod at her as I leave. 

“And good luck,” she smirks as I exit the room. 

He’s there. He’s taken up his usual station at the table just inside the shade right outside the door, and if it’s not just my imagination he looks even better than usual. He’s got on a casually wrinkled white button-up, top two buttons undone with the sleeves rolled up past the elbows. It brings out the golden color of his skin, and as I pass him I know I’m not imagining one thing: he smiles. He’s not looking at me, but he smiles at the computer on the table. Maybe he had just stumbled upon a photo of a cute cat, but somehow something was very telling about that smile. It eggs me on. I fumble my way through my order. Morgan says I look pretty dapper today, and I thank him. I forget my change on the counter, and have to go back. Once I have everything sorted, I take a deep breath and walk through the door. 

My heart’s pounding in my throat. My fingers feel a little numb. Is this really what it should feel like, to ask someone out? I’m painfully out of practice. I swallow hard and smile at myself, urging blood back through my extremities. Dom is still on his laptop when I approach, tapping on a few keys, eyes hidden beneath the flat black lenses of his sunglasses. 

It’s now or never. I have to do this. I said I would. 

In an effort not to seem overly serious, I stand next to his table with one hand in my pocket, striking what I hope is a nonchalant pose. “Sort of hot out today, isn’t it?” 

I’m stunned that a grin breaks out on his face almost immediately. Sensing the inevitable shut-down, I consider apologizing and fleeing to eat lunch in my car. But he just laughs to himself, shaking his head and still smiling. His hands go up to his sunglasses. As he pulls them off, he falls into a lovely sigh. 

“I knew you’d go for the thing about it being hot outside. I just knew it.” 

I freeze when I realize I know that voice, and my mouth pauses half-open on a breath not taken as he blinks his big grey eyes up at me, looking straight at me as he gives a shy shrug. “Hi, Matt.”


	5. Chapter 5

There is a moment of feeling sorry for him, this adorable thing standing in front of me stumbling over his words and trying to figure out where to let his eyes rest. He runs through a gamut of facial expressions and then clears his throat, which obviously doesn’t go so well because he just coughs and clears it again. Still holding a fist to his mouth, he rolls his eyes at what seems to be a sudden fit of coughing. I want to laugh but I know I can’t, because I’m too busy considering him. This is the full picture of him. Short and dark and not that special until I look closely and notice the sculpture that is his face, the fine softness of his hair, and - most of al - l the brilliant, riveting blue of those eyes when they finally train on me.

“I never know what to say after someone coughs.” I shrug and attempt to keep my cool. His name is James. Should I call him that? Should I show him how well I’ve been paying attention around the water cooler, such as Giallo’s is? I’m not cool enough to do that. I end up shrugging again. “I think, like, ‘bless you’ or something needs to exist for coughing. But it doesn’t. So then I feel like I’m just ignoring the person.” 

“Yeah, I know.” He shakes his head like we’re not thinking about anything but the semantics of coughing, and his throat sputters with a bit more clearing. “I know, I’ve always thought that, too.” 

He pauses. It’s sinking back in. After a few blinks, he almost lifts his hand to point at me but stops. I glance away shyly; I must have used up all my swagger when he first came up to the table. “Holy shit, for real.” 

“Yeah, for real.” Funny how I’ve been perfectly fine until this moment, knowing he was watching me, knowing that even before I knew he was _Matt_. My Matt. I know things about this man he wouldn’t dare tell his best friends, and now we’re acting like strangers, refusing to meet eyes while laughter tiptoes around the table. “Sit down,” I tell him. “I’m a little nervous, sorry. I’m usually not like this.”

The things my voice has been saying to him by night... I don’t want to linger on those thoughts. I’m not ashamed, but it doesn’t make it easier to introduce myself. It’s okay, though, because James is too busy gesturing and stuttering as he slides in to take a seat. “Like, this isn’t even--this can’t--I mean have you always been right here?” 

“Obviously.” I think I come off sounding like such a dick when I talk like that, but no one’s been able to put me in my place for it yet, so I just go with instinct and talk the way I always do. “If by ‘here’ you mean this city, or coming and going from Giallo’s.” 

“Yeah yeah yeah yeah, that’s what I meant.” That’s the voice all right, rushed and almost garbled, musical almost. “I see you almost every day.” 

“And I you.” I lift my cup and take a sip of my lemonade, looking at him with a flick of my eyebrows.

He smiles. He likes the way I said that, I can tell. He’s the sort of guy who appreciates artful grammar. Not that I’m a genius or a poet, but I speak carefully. It comes with the job and with the dozens of dramatic recitations and monologues over the years.

“It’s like this shouldn’t be happening, because--” I wait for him to go on and complete the thought, because I’m not sure where he plans on taking it. His head shakes back and forth, but he’s still smiling. “Well, because you’re exactly like I imagined you looked.” 

“Well, you didn’t imagine it, did you?” I say it lowly, trying to be teasing although I probably come off like a dick again. I rattle the ice around at the bottom of my cup, peering inside to confirm that I’ve drunk all the lemonade. When the remark goes unanswered, I lift my eyebrows over at him again. “You saw me here, and then you proceeded to masturbate over what you saw.” 

He lifts both hands to his face and falls back as deeply into his chair as he can. I can’t believe I just said that. I’m too fucking confident with my words, and confidence doesn’t necessarily equate with tact or even common sense. “Oh my God, I’m sorry. That came out all wrong. Completely fucking wrong. I don’t give a fuck. I really don’t. No wait. I don’t mean it that way, either. I just--” _Fuck._

“No,” he interrupts me as coolly as he can, taking his hands away from his face to run up through his hair. “Nooooo, trust me. Lots of awkward shame over that one. If I’d known--” 

“If you’d _known_ , I don’t know you would have called me again.” 

He shrugs and smiles down at the table. “Yeah, well, that’s true.” 

So he didn’t know, and he proceeded to pin the fantasy on the phone sex operator, confessing his secrets and telling me truth after truth, desire after desire. We played around and we connected somehow and we were intimate despite the fact that we had only our voices to do it with. Now, it comes to this. Shy insecurity, trying to look and act collected and fine with the strange situation it is. 

“Nice tie,” I say, pretty much exclusively to break the track of the conversation, because it makes me uncomfortable. He looks down at his black tie dotted with chili peppers, and looks proud of himself.

“Thanks, Brooke got it for me. I think--” he remembers something, and blinks his pretty blue eyes up at nothing. “Shit, I’m on lunch, what am I going to do about work?” 

“Don’t let me keep you. Go back to work! I’ll give you my number and you can--” 

“No! No no no! I’ve waited to take this chance and now it all turned out even more interesting than I figured, I am _not_ letting you get away.” 

I hold my hands out innocently. “I’m not going anywhere! I intend to answer your calls!” 

He’s already pulling his phone out. I start to go on but he actually holds up a shushing finger. I bark out a laugh, and he holds the phone aside to inform me: “I’ve got perfect attendance at my job. I can call out with an emergency and they won’t even bat an eye.”

“I’m an emergency?” I ask brightly, grinning in spite of my efforts to hold it back.

His eyes flash wider and the brows crook strangely as he looks me up and down where I’m sitting. The expression is plain, and it tells me that the answer is obvious. To put a bow on it, though, he simply says: “Like I said before, I intend to get my money’s worth.”

I like this. I like this more than I let on, wearing a stunned smirk as I allow him to go on with the calm, even call to his manager, informing him or her that something came up. He says he has something to do. Something came up, something to do... the whole exchange couldn’t be more of a double entendre if it were scripted. When he pulls the phone aside and hangs up the line, his eyes bow apologetically at me. “That - what I said about money - that wasn’t meant to make you feel like a--”

I hold up one hand to stop him, nodding as I do. “I get it, it’s cool. I thought it was effective. And I liked it. Clever.”

“Maybe we should introduce ourselves, you know?” He sort of cuts me off, tilting his head to the side in a curious way. I have to agree with him, though it takes a few seconds of silence.

“Yes, of course! I’m... that is, pleased to meet you, my name is Dom.” I reach over to him with my hand outstretched. I wonder just what’s going through his mind when our skin touches for the first time. Things we said are probably fighting with real life, trying to make sense of what’s real and expected and what isn’t quite. Not yet, at least. 

“Dom, I’m James.”

“James...” his hand is big but delicate, his fingers long and more graceful than anything else about him. The feeling of his handshake gives me some indication of who he really is, and it lines up with what I know from the phone. He’s strong, he’s in-control. A little _too_ in-control. The poor guy never takes chances. Not that I know what those are like, myself. “Proud of you, James. Really glad you got the balls to talk to me.” 

“Um... me too.” Finally, he pulls his hand away. We both smile at how long we held on, like flirting teenagers. “Thank the prompt service here. If it had taken two more minutes I would probably have gotten worried about being late, and wouldn’t have come over.” 

“So glad you did,” I reiterate with a breath. I’m leaning forward against the edge of the table, now. It’s beginning to really come to me, washing over my brain warmly with the truth of what this means. At least, what I hope it means. My eyes whip over him again. _We’re going to sleep together_. Maybe my eyes are projecting images and thoughts for him to read, because just as I think this his head falls against his hand and he starts laughing. 

“Oh, wow,” he whines, “this is a bit awkward. Maybe we should go somewhere more private, you know?”

I make a saucy face at him, and he rolls his eyes, blanching just a bit. “Not like that! Not like that. I mean...” a deep sigh, and James runs his long fingers through his hair again. “I mean, hey. Dom. Do you want to get out of here and go on a date?” 

Despite my cynical adulthood, my self-imposed solitude, and my general mistrust of other people, my heart leaps at this and I can’t help the grin that breaks on out on my face. “I’d absolutely love that.” 

“I know a place.” 

\--

Indeed, he does. It’s not a place, though, so much as it’s a location. I know that doesn’t quite add up, since a place _is_ a location, but when someone says they know a place they’re usually taking you to a restaurant or a club or a piano bar or _something_. An installation, at the very least. The “place” James has us standing in front of is a cart. Granted, it’s a rather permanent-seeming cart, taking up a vacant space adjacent to a parking lot, between a clothing store and a far more legitimate-looking restaurant. There are tables set up in the lot, and the menu looks savory enough. Still, I have my reservations, and he sees this. 

“I’m sorry, is this going to be a problem?” We talked about the weirdness of our situation all the way to the place, while I drove and he gave directions, usually only when I reminded him I needed to be told where to go. 

“No, not at all!” I don’t tell him I’m more OCD than I let on. Not at first. I can push past it, but I tend to be a whiner when I have to do so. Eating from food carts makes me a little queasy, due to some bad run-ins in the past, most of them in New York City. I’ve heard all the stories about how health regulations are even stricter for those vendors, but I won’t be swayed. Still, I figure, this is Virginia and this is different. And this place looks pretty nice, despite it. It serves a weird combination of Mexican and Polynesian. It’s called Maliki’s. Then, I remind myself of what I’d been repeating in my head for months. 

_If you ever get a boyfriend, Dom, or even if you’re just out on a date... don’t lie. Don’t overstate things and don’t fucking hide things, that’s how you end up getting in over your head._

Over and over. Every new person I meet in the club or via the internet, it’s just a big pile of trying to make myself sound more interesting than I am, or digging a hole right from the beginning by leaving out something vital like “I may have some tendencies I don’t like to compromise on.”

I’ve still got my arms crossed over my chest, and James is still watching me intently. I twitch a little and shake my head with the compulsion. “I’m sorry, I’m just... I’m picky about these things. I’m sure it’s great, but--”

“--no, no, I understand!” He interrupts, waving his hands, eyes pulsing as he laughs calmly. “I’ve got weird hang-ups, too. Not that-- oh shit, I didn’t mean to say ‘weird’, it’s just--” 

“It’s cool.” I shrug. He points at the restaurant next door.

“Do you want to go there, instead?”

“Do _you_? I’m a pain in the ass date already, I know.” 

“Are not!” He smacks me lightly on the arm. “To be honest I had my heart set on a mango mahi taco from here, but... I mean, Sergio’s is nice, too. Steak and pasta, nothing special but it’s good. We can go there.” 

“I’ll tell you what,” I turn to him with a nod, trying not to think about how delicious a mango mahi taco sounds, if only I could wrap my head around the concept of buying from a food cart, “you order what you want. I’ll go inside and order what I want. We’ll both meet out here and eat, okay?” I smile and gesture at one of the tables. 

“I was actually thinking...” He scratches behind his ear. It’s so cute, the way one of his eyes scrunches shut at this, that it makes me chuckle as I watch and wait for him to go on. “I was thinking if you got something portable, we can go walking on the boardwalk while we eat.” 

“A boardwalk date, seriously?” 

He nods. “Is that all right? I don’t want to--” 

We’re both being too insecure for our own mutual good, and I have a feeling that neither of us is really that way. So I take a deep breath and decide to stop playing coy. “That sounds fucking amazing.” Another deep breath, and I stare at him a little longer. His eyes flick away for an instant, but he’s smiling even so. “Just walking along and talking about the mysteries of the universe, right?” 

“God,” he nearly whispers it, “your voice just did that... that _thing_.” 

“What thing?” I chuckle and lean forward, not purposefully teasing him. I really want to know what he means. 

James twirls a finger in the air as he explains. “Like it just got all rumbly and dipped, when you said that. Like we were on the phone again.” 

“Not on the phone this time.” I touch his arm. Part of me can’t believe we hadn’t even touched yet. He sucks in a breath I can feel and hear as I make contact. He sold himself short every time he talked to me; he is almost devastatingly attractive. “You and I are both right here.”

The comfort is growing, at last. We share a moment there in the parking lot between the cart and the restaurant, smiling at each other as we both privately try to reconcile the fact that we haven’t even held hands yet. As our eyes just stick together, unwilling and unable to move, I break the contact with a wink. “I’ll be right back. Going to see if I can get something portable to eat.” 

It’s late Spring and the sun will be setting late. As it is now, a haze covers the sky by the oceanside, leaving the air warm and thick but shielding us from the usually unbearable sun. Not a chance of rain, from what it seems. Fine walking weather. I stop before I turn completely around, and shoot him another grin. He seems speechless, but I can tell he’s just searching for the right thing to say. He’s got a subtle intensity to him. James is a man of considerable character, and loads more stories than I’ve been able to hear yet. I feel so boring, compared to what I already know. I can’t wait to find out what I don’t. For the moment, though, I leave him to find the proper words while I walk inside of Sergio’s. 

I’m three steps away when he calls out: “Hey!” 

I lurch back mid-stride and face him again. “Yeah?” 

“Are we... like, this is a romantic date, right?” 

I do so love a man who doesn’t leave mind games to be played. “Yeah!” I inform him briskly, and turn back around again, heading for the restaurant with a new spring in my step. I make sure to swing my hips just a little bit more than before. 

\--

With food in our bellies and requisite post-dinner ice cream cones in our hands, James is laughing as I tell him the third or fourth story about my dog. “Stop me if this gets dreadful. I feel like I’ve done nothing but go on about Wembley.” 

“Well, I like it,” he tells me resolutely, still smiling. “Hang on, I’ve got to rest for a moment, I’m dripping all over.” 

I laugh inwardly, and he warns me to “stop it...” with a darkly amused tone as he leans against the rail of the boardwalk and lifts the ice cream cone high to eat it from the wrong side up. I watch with great interest as his tongue darts out to curl around the bottom tip, catching the melted run-off that had been seeping onto his hands. By the time he’s sucked the cone into his mouth, slurping the remainder of the ice cream right out, he glances over at me. I’m gaping. 

He nearly chokes as he pulls his dessert away, doubling over to laugh. I let out a frustrated groan and turn on heel, making a circle before we come back around to stand in front of one another, laughing and smiling and so, so close.

The laughter breaks down into silence. I’ve already finished my cone and I’m more concerned with looking at him. I move in a step closer and lift a hand up to his face. I see his nostrils flare in anticipation, his eyes dilated in the beautiful light of early evening. The sun will be setting soon. We’ve agreed to stick around long enough to watch it, even though the hazy sky is still in full force and the most we’ll probably see are the clouds changing color before night falls. Keeping my breath even, I cup his cheek and let my thumb swipe out to the corner of his mouth. “You’ve got a spot right here,” I tell him gently, cleaning off a bit of clinging ice cream from his soft skin. He feels hot, and it feels like he’s getting hotter. I can’t see him blush, but this is almost as good.

We’ve gone over our families (to an extent), what brought us to this city and how we landed our current jobs. We’ve talked a bit about politics, just the surface that needed to be skimmed to test the waters. I agree with him. I actually have found someone that I agree with. He’s needled me sweetly about what other “weird hang-ups” I have, and for every one of mine he’s offered me one of his. 

_People aren’t like this,_ I tell myself, _rom-coms are bullshit and you don’t just meet someone who hits all the right notes for you, not like this at any rate._

I’ve picked out little things that might be irritating, those things I tend to cling to with other people I date, using them as an excuse to end everything. He uses the same five-dollar words a lot. He doesn’t look at me, most of the time, when he’s talking. He rubs his face too much. But the more I try to convince myself these are annoyances, the more charming I think they might end up being. 

While I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop, though, I find a nice respite in admiring him. I watch twitches of emotion and unspoken sentiments tugging at his lips, and I feel a tiny patch of stubble far back on his cheek, just sparse enough to have been missed shaving. 

“You smell good,” he says, voice sounding strangely timid. Not like he sounds on the phone, questioning my intentions and generally being a cynic while I’m trying to get paid. He’s given up on the right things, the clever and well-timed things. He just wants to talk. I like that. “That really is a relief.” 

“I’m glad.” I’ve still got my hand on his face, touching the softness of his cheek in rhythmic strokes from my thumb. He acts on the way I’m staring, and bats his eyes at me, causing my heart to hitch with disbelief as he tilts his head farther into my touch. 

“What are you thinking?” He asks. 

“I’m thinking,” I hope my voice is doing that _thing_ which seemed to have such a nice effect earlier, “that it’s a real mind job how we still haven’t even kissed.” 

His eyes go just a touch wider, but outwardly he tries not to react. I cock my head slightly and give him that as a prompt. I feel him take two deep breaths, and while his eyes are still fastened on mine I’m compelled to say his name. “James...” I sound it out carefully and look at him, attaching the name to the face I can see. “Weird. I want to call you Matt.” 

“You can,” he says, nodding subtly. “I like it when you say it. James is like... he’s like an old me, almost.” It’s his middle name, James, but he’s been called by it most of his life, by most people in his social and professional circles. “Go ahead. You can call me Matt.” 

I pull back just slightly, but I keep hold of him. It’s mostly for comic effect. “Are you sure?” I think he fears a separation, because he lifts a hand and clutches my forearm possessively. I like that touch. I want someone to be possessive like that, to hold onto me and call me his.

“Positive,” he tells me, nodding. I focus on Matt’s eyes - thinking of him as Matt, and finding how well it fits and how familiarly my mind attaches itself to that association - and I can see that strength and dominance I knew on the phone.

I don’t mind that it’s still beneath the surface, though. We have time to let it bubble up on its own. For now I’m satisfied with the hand on my arm. “Don’t know how I feel about Nick, though...” 

“That’s okay. You don’t really look like a Nick. I like the name Dom better.” He starts to move that hand, rubbing my arm casually but oh-so-meaningfully. We both know the pensive excitement passing between us, coaxing hesitant smiles to our lips as we each wait for the other to speak. 

“You can kiss me,” I say, leaning closer. “Do you want to?” 

He leans forward to put his lips on mine before he even answers the question. Though, I suppose, that was an answer unto itself. A breeze blows down the boardwalk as we kiss for the first time, our lips warm and still and pursing together as our hair and clothes get caught and tossed about by the wind.

It doesn’t matter how long it’s been since the last time it felt this good, this comforting, this _exciting_ to kiss someone. Because any time the present is better than the past, it’s best to hold on for dear life. 

“Seems odd,” he says as he blinks and pulls away, though it seems like he doesn’t really want to. Kissing and talking have difficulty coexisting, however. “This is totally not how I would have expected this to go. You know, considering how we first... um... got to know each other.” 

My hands have dropped to his waist. I’m holding him loosely, standing as close to him as I dare. “Oh, now, I’d say we’re doing great. We have to exercise _some_ restraint, don’t we?” 

“I don’t know.” He shrugs, the timidity fading further for every moment he’s in my arms. “Do we really?” 

“Are you disappointed?” I push in close and peck him on the cheek. On instinct, perhaps, he dodges it as a tease, but then seems to realize what he just did. He’s back in and catching my lips in another kiss, this one wanting, inviting, his lips moving firmly on mine. 

“I’m not.”

“Obviously.” 

“Besides, I _did_ deep-throat an ice cream cone. Your restraint is off the charts, after that.” There’s just the right amount of superior intimation to this that I’m turned on by his confidence, even as I lean laughing into his shoulder. There’s the man I talked to. There’s the one couldn’t wait to talk to, laboring through other callers in hopes that he would be next on the line. For conversation, yes, but for the sake of our lovely little date I’ve been neglecting to think about the other aspect. 

If I think about it too much, there may be some problems out in the glaring public eye of the boardwalk. “Do you need to work tonight?” 

The question sounds indecipherable at first, like he’s speaking in another language by bringing up work in the same space and time that he is with me. I don’t want to work. I don’t want to get on the phone. 

“No.” I squeeze my hands on his back, this time, and watch him breathing hard as I knead the flesh there. I’m shocked at how obedient my mind is being, staying in place and not wandering too much. Usually I have more scandalous thoughts, even about strangers I see on the street. “Tonight I think we should both play hooky from all our obligations.”

“And do what?” He asks. I suddenly understand what he meant about my voice, because his does the same thing. It makes me hot behind the ears and suddenly I’m groaning softly despite myself. He’s so lithe, so skinny where my hands wind up on his waist. I wonder what he would look like beneath me with his legs around my back--

Oh, there goes my brain. I was beginning to worry it had missed the bus.

“What do you want to do?” I ask, remembering to smile despite how badly I want to just stand there and _simmer_. I don’t mind that I missed going to the gym. I don’t mind that I won’t be working tonight. I don’t care about much, because the man in my arms is the one who’s been on my mind long enough to be considered a fantasy. He’s a very normal sort of fantasy, granted, but that doesn’t make it any less exciting.

“Remember the very first time we talked?” I nod. He keeps going. “You asked me that, but instead I forced you to tell me what you wanted. That’s what I’m going to do now. What do you want to do?”

“I do remember that.” I smirk and kiss him quickly one more time, just to seem discreet enough that a passing middle-aged couple does not feel the need to comment snidely. I don’t mention, for the moment, that I like the way he slipped in _forced_ like that, even though he didn’t do much forcing. “But you never did what I wanted you to do. Lots of callers ask, and I tell them all. Very few actually do it. It’s a shame.” 

“There’s still time, Dom,” he informs me. “Right now, though. What do you want to do?” 

“Well, it’s been such a wonderful evening, it would be a shame to not go where it leads us...” I watch another couple walking close by as I whisper in his ear with my chin on his shoulder. “I want to go somewhere I can take all your clothes off.” 

He turns his head to me slowly, and we’re so close that his breath is on my cheek and I’m still people-watching over his shoulder as he whispers back, “You name the place. I already picked dinner. It’s your turn.”

“All right, then.” I step back, trying to remember the state I left my housekeeping in early that morning. Matt’s perching practically on top of the railing now, holding on and fixing me with an expectant smile. I don’t care what state I left things in. I plan on leaving the house a complete disaster if things lead that way. “I’m taking you home with me.” 

“Are you going to keep me?” Playfully, he leans forward. 

“Well, that depends on how much time off you can really take from your job.” 

For a split-second, I swear he pales. Like he’s intimidated by the prospect, and scared I might be telling the truth, which of course I am. If Matt’s worth the sort of things he’s talked about on the phone, I won’t be satisfied until I’ve wicked all of that potential, rendering him no longer confused and serving as his first _real_ male lover in the process. The look he gives me, though, lasts just for a breath of a second before he smirks and pushes away from the railing. 

If I play my cards right, I won’t need to keep him. If this is as good as the potential promises, he’ll beg to stay.


	6. Chapter 6

I’ve been devouring him with my eyes since we got into his dusty blue Jeep Cherokee. Neck and arms, mouth and nose, the contours of his chest nicely visible beneath his snug t-shirt. I don’t know if there are any limits. I want to grab him. I want to touch him. We pass Arctic Avenue on 34th Street, and somehow I decide I can’t take it anymore. I reach in and run the back of my knuckles over his arm, below the line of his sleeve. I watch as he smiles. Dom. Fantastic name. It suits him so well. Jesus. I’m going to fuck him. I’m really going to be swapping bodily fluids with this lovely male specimen in a short while. 

The moan that leaves my mouth isn’t entirely intentional. 

“Excited?” I see his lips moving before I hear the words. He doesn’t need his sunglasses anymore, as the sun sinks low on the horizon while we head West. We didn’t stay around for the sunset, after all.

“Would it make me sound desperate if I say yes, I am?” I shift to look at his eyes, now. He’s been studying me not-so-subtly since we met in the cafe, a mischievous and hungry look all over him. I love that hungry look. I feel so powerful, in a way I don’t often know. Wanted, desired, a body, a piece of ass. I sort of like it. No need to worry about being more; not at the moment. 

“Not at all. It might hinder the believability a bit when you order me around, though.” That was his way of slipping it in, then. Not smooth, exactly, but I’m intrigued, turned halfway in my seat to face him.

“Oh? Who said I’m going to do that?” _It sounds like just the right thing to do._

“No one. I’m humbly requesting it. And that’s all we’ll say about it, I reckon.” 

I can do it. It will take a considerable amount of smirking at my own luck, just to get over the fact that one of the most attractive people I’d ever spoken to is asking me, flat-out, to dominate him. I feel like Dom’s kinks are well known to me. Just a toy box of fun to rifle through for the remainder of the night. Tomorrow morning? The next whole _day_ , perhaps?

When he pulls into a driveway, finally, I take a cursory glance at our surroundings and find the neighborhood suitably empty in the near-dark of twilight. “This is me,” he announces gingerly, and to the chiming of a safety alert he opens the door.

“Don’t leave yet,” I tell him. 

He pauses, considerably as if he knows what’s going on, and the dome light goes off again as he pulls the door shut on the driver’s side. Dom settles back behind the wheel. “Okay.” 

After a moment, I lean over and do what only a desire to not die in a fiery car crash could have prevented me from doing before. I spread my fingers over his chest, pushing him hard into the seat as I lean over to kiss him. His lips yield for me as he gasps, a notable “mmm” beneath the sound of the creaking seat when I lift up to move stronger. His hands find my back and clutch tightly. 

I’m on one knee in my seat by the time he reaches down to pet my thigh. He’s sucking on my tongue and my lips, and then I realize the strangest thing about the encounter. 

“This is weird when you’re not talking to me,” I pull back to murmur. 

“Sorry,” Dom licks his lips, “I was a little busy with my mouth.” 

With his knuckles running over my cheek, I turn into the touch, and before I can figure out what I’m going to say, I open my eyes to look at him. Game over on trying to figure out what to say. His hair’s a little mussed from the sudden make-out session, mouth crooked lazily on a sexy smile, eyes heavy to match. 

“Jesus. You’re so good looking,” I finally gasp out. 

He drags the teeth over his bottom lip for a split-second as his face lights up in a grin. I swear he blushes. “Let’s get inside. I’ll talk to you inside.”

A hyperactive Boston Terrier gives me time to think, and my libido a few moments to regroup. I say hello to Wembley and Dom asks me if I’d like anything to drink as he puts the dog out in the backyard. “He’ll be thrilled to be out there for a while, anyway.” 

“I’ll bet,” I turn from the bookshelf I’ve been studying, and face him. “I’m fine. Not very thirsty. Thank you, though.” The bookshelf passes inspection. Jennifer Egan, Chuck Palahniuk, Jonathen Safran Foer. Dom seems to like his books on the less accessible and more impressionist side, which is just fine with me. The whole duplex is neat and tidy, though I’d have expected nothing less from the man who refused to eat tacos from a food cart. There are houseplants dotting the counters and the few tables, suggesting a solid, lived-in atmosphere. Very homey, very comfortable. Very much like Dom, the more I take him in and put the stories with the voice with the face with the surroundings. 

He stands next to the open refrigerator door and takes a sip from a bottle of water. Recapping it, he nods and wipes his wrist over his mouth. “Great, then.” 

I meet him in the doorway. “You said you were going to talk to me?” I ask, and he steps forward on cue to place a finger to my lips.

“I am.” His voice rumbles just like it does on the phone, only now I’m overwhelmed by the big grey eyes that match the sound, thin eyebrows lifting to give his face a mischievous quality. “I’ve been looking at you since you came up to my table. Well, that’s a lie,” he cups my chin, weak as it is. “I’ve been watching you since before that. I’ve got something to tell you, if you promise not to laugh.” 

“Go on.” 

“I thought about you, too. After I saw you at the cafe. Maybe you were the Matt I had in my mind, too.” 

I feel a surge of pride, a shock of sexual fire. The thought of Dom putting my face with the voice telling him to get on his knees and open his mouth and...

“Love your eyes, love your face. You’ve got high cheekbones, like a model or something.” He kisses along them, letting them lead the way to my ears. I feel Dom nibble the lobes and flick his tongue around, as my fingers tighten on his t-shirt and dig into his back. My hips rise into his. I’m getting hard. “But I like your mouth, most.”

“Seriously?” I don’t believe him. He doesn’t seem to care. He stops me from giggling, though, by grabbing my lips in a kiss. “Oh--” I break away with a happy moan to say, and we smile into each other excitedly before kissing again, and again. This time he has me against the wall, pushing his own hips into mine. He’s hard, too. 

“Yeah, I want to see what that mouth can do.”

“Oh, God,” I’m thanking heaven as he shoves into me and pushes the bulge of his cock into mine. Judging simply by that, there’s no way his cock is disappointing in the least. “Oh, God, yes.” 

My hands are wild on his back, pulling up the fabric of his t-shirt until he moves away and lets me drag it right up and over his head. My eyes dance over his naked chest, fingers spreading over it, palming his nipples and the patch of thin, pretty blond hair at the center. When my eyes meet his again, I’m compelled to drag my touch lower. This obviously pleases him. “You want to be my little cocksucker, Matt?” 

I’m on my knees as if a trapdoor went out beneath me. Dom chuckles just a bit, and his fingers are running so tenderly through my hair that I wonder which way this will go. I was supposed to take control and dominate him, wasn’t I? But this was his idea. This is my life’s ambition. I do love a mouthy submissive, I remind myself, but try not to get so far ahead of the present that I I do something stupid like fumble with his zipper. Needless to say, then, I’m fumbling with the zipper. I try to remember that first and only time I sucked a cock. Was I good, I wonder? Should I ask Dom what he prefers? Will confidence be more of a turn-on? Will I just end up looking dumb?

With a frustrated sound I finally yank his pants open, and Dom gives something between a laugh and a moan of relief as I pull the jeans and the boxer shorts down together.

“Mmm, that’s right, put your hand around it.” He’s thick in my grip, smooth skin and hot muscle and perfect mushroom head. I test my touch, squeezing just a little and stroking him. 

Begging approval, I glance up. Dom’s leaned forward with one hand on the wall, mouth open. “That feels good,” he tells me. “That feels real good.” 

I keep stroking him, then, with my free hand caressing his long thighs and the soft blond hair on them. When I reach up to cup my hand around the firm flesh of his ass, he whines and bucks into me a little. I can’t help but chuckle. “Sorry. I’m supposed to be talking to you, aren’t I? Hard to, um, concentrate...” 

“Quite all right.” My voice drips out on a low note, and I lean in to kiss the head of his cock. He bucks again, whining and then moaning roughly. The kiss turns into more as I open my mouth on the silky knob and lower my hand to let my lips take over. 

“Oh, God,” Dom has both hands on the wall now. “Yes, do that. Fuck yes.” 

I let a false sense of security lull me in. This seems easy enough, I figure, and the positive reactions from Dom are certainly compelling me to go forward. I’m sucking and tasting and enjoying him, pushing my tongue on the thickness of his length, careful not to let my teeth scrape here or there, letting him shove into the pocket of my soft palate before I suck him in as deeply as I can. My heart beats a little faster. Yeah, this isn’t so bad. Yeah, I can do this. 

When I look up, he’s got his eyes closed. I don’t care. I hold my gaze and pull away just a bit, reaching up to rub his balls as I lick a strong line up the underside of his (delicious, I might add) cock. At this he finally blinks open and looks down to watch me. 

“Fuck...” he breathes out. “Fuck, it’s a lot harder to tell you how much I love this when you’re actually doing it.” 

“Try,” I urge him, and smile mischievously. My hand kneads and pulls a little more strongly at his balls, and I suck him in again. 

“God!” He barks and snaps his head back, moaning. “God, Matt, deeper. Fuck. Fuck.” 

A dark realization clouds my mind and I think maybe he can feel the mischievous smile that crooks the corner of my mouth as I comply. One pass, then two. Three, four. More. I pull back before it gets to be too much. That’s where sucking dick becomes a little frightening, I realize. Deeper, longer, striking a rhythm and not being able to break it until you decide whether you want to spit or swallow or...

I pull away very suddenly, kissing down to suck his balls into my mouth to let the disappointed whining spill over into a new stimulation. He’s babbling a little, not sure of what just happened. He’s still hard as a pipe and shiny and gorgeous and ready to pop, but I’m not going to be so charitable. Not when I told him already that I’d give him what he wants. “It’s your turn, Dom.” 

He takes a few steps back, almost like he’s falling away from me, and he lands against the opposite wall of the hallway, the one leading between the kitchen and the living room. He smiles and watches me where I’m still kneeling, reaching down to feel my hard cock in my jeans. Thinking of him doing that to me, thinking of his majestic lips coming anywhere close to giving me the sort of pleasure I cooked up on the phone; thinking of being naked for him, ordering him around. Only one place to start. 

“You like to put on a show,” I tell him, jerking myself a bit lewdly in my pants with my legs spread wide already. “So I’d like to see. Where’s your stage, hm? You filthy whore.” 

He breathes out and closes his eyes, smile splitting into a grin as if I’ve given him some sort of leverage he didn’t realize he had before. Dom steps out of his clothes, completely naked and appearing not the least bit self-conscious about this fact. And why would he be? He’s fucking exquisite, a masterpiece of biology and genetics. I count myself lucky that I’ve happened upon someone who knows just how gorgeous he is, but still doesn’t seem to be a complete douche about it. In fact, Dom still seemed a little shy right up until now, up until this point that I’m meticulously taking in the details of his body, tonguing the taste of him from my mouth, waiting for my orders to be fulfilled. 

I like the feeling, watching him as he turns obediently away, cock still bobbing hard and lovely in front of his hips as he starts to walk off. His arms crook over his head and I see the long sinewy muscles in his back flex in a short stretch. Relaxing, he glances back at me. He asks if I’m following. Of course I am. 

He leads me up a narrow flight of stairs to the second floor, where he turns in the doorway to a dark bedroom to press a finger to his lips. “This is my secret lair. You’re the only other person to enter,” he informs me, and then pulls me to him. I’m not committed enough to my dominant persona that I won’t allow this. The kiss from Dom is fantastic to feel, especially as the hardness of his cock hits me first and curves up between our bellies as our lips work together. Of course there’s also the ego boost at knowing he hasn’t dragged any other lovers up and into his bedroom, or at least that’s what I want to believe. 

He flicks on a light switch, and in the process I catch him from behind, twining my arms around his body and spooning him to kiss his neck and the back of his shoulders. “Do you want me to play with myself?” He asks. 

This really is his forte; he sounds worlds different already.

“I want to see how good you are when you do that, yes,” I tell him. “Seems like you love to show off.” 

“Mmm... but I really want to see you naked.” He pushes his ass back into my hips and I chuckle.

“You will. I promise I won’t be able to keep it in my pants once you get going. Just like on the phone.” 

He echoes me breathily. “Just like on the phone...” 

Dom pulls away and turns around, fingers trailing down the center of my chest before he walks backwards toward his bed. It’s a big bed; a very big bed, with four posters and a deep maroon colored comforter that appears to be silk or satin or something equally luxurious. It takes up most of the room, save the side tables flanking it and the big mirror situated front and center. 

“Do you watch yourself when you work?” I ask, pointing at the mirror. 

“Oh yes.” Dom slides up onto the bed easily, reaching over for the side table. His grin fades into a heavier expression as he pulls the drawer open, eyeing me like he’s inviting me to share another secret. “You want to pick?” 

I sort of know what he’s asking, but convince myself to believe nothing until I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Dragging a hand over my mouth, I step forward and peer into the drawer he’s pulling further open. 

With a cough, I just barely keep myself from laughing. “That’s... that’s a lot of toys.” 

He shrugs. “It’s part of the job. It’s also part of being desperately single.” 

“I don’t have anything like this,” I’m sure to say it with an air of slight disappointment. I’ll admit, the idea suddenly seems very appealing. Just like to me to realize something like this _after_ I’ve actually met someone willing to sit on my dick. Not that I’m complaining.

“It’s great,” he coos, and reaches a hand sensuously inside of the drawer. “Depending on my mood I can have whatever I want. I might just want a standard butt plug or a huge dong inside of me or _this_...” he pulls out a white thing that looks more like a modern art piece than a sex toy. I’m stunned, and he sees it. “It’s a prostate massager. Especially useful when I want to come like my life depended on it. Makes me lose control, though. I like to use this when I’m alone. Not a work item, really.” 

“Maybe I’ll help you out without the need for that toy, later,” I say.

“I’d like that,” Dom’s eyes hold mine lustily, and he places the massager back in the drawer. “I’d really like that. For now, though?” 

“Finger yourself,” I move forward just enough to touch his knee, to dip inside and rub his thigh a bit before I pull back. “I want to see and hear just you, for now.”

“Yeah?” I think that Dom has some idea of what I want, the way he’s responding. “You want to see me spread my ass and jerk myself the way I do when we’re on the phone?”

“That’s exactly what I want.” 

“Can I get you to pull your pecker out, if I play with myself?” He’s curling his fingers around his cock already, and I’m checking the space behind to make sure I won’t back up into a lamp or an antique vase if I suddenly need the support of the wall. That seems entirely likely. “Mmm, I want to see it. Sucked it in my head so many times.” 

“Just keep doing that,” I nod at him, and dutifully he complies, hand moving artfully on his rigid length. “And you will.” 

“You like my cock?” He asks, pulling a pillow over to bunch beneath his head so he can still look at me. “You enjoyed sucking on it? I felt so good having your sweet lips on it, Matt.” He glances aside, and his gaze is focused elsewhere before he seems to remember to look at me. 

“No, no,” I tell him, realizing where he was looking. “Watch yourself. Watch your sexy fucking body, like you do when you’re alone. I want to see how you do it when we’re talking. Then I’ll fill in the blanks.” 

Not that I’ve noticed, but I’ve been fondling myself through my jeans since he started speaking. I don’t want to get my clothes off yet, though. I gave him a goal, and he seems bound and determined to fulfill it. I watch as he turns to the mirror and hitches one foot up on the mattress. He uses it to push himself up slightly, and I groan to see his ass spread open in the stretch. One finger reaches down to touch his beckoning hole, just tapping it a few times. 

“Love this part,” Dom interrupts my thoughts, and closes his eyes for a moment. “Love teasing myself before I go inside. God, I need to get fucked. Now that we’re not speaking professionally I can tell you that. I need to get fucked so bad. I’m so fucking tight just to the first knuckle, I can’t imagine how this is going to waste without a hard cock inside of it.” 

This is the part where I’m grateful for the lack of lamps or antique vases behind me. I stumble back until my shoulders hit the wall and rub my crotch harder. “I’d be more than happy to,” I decide to speak up.

“Yeah?” It’s like he isn’t even in the same room, eyes still fixed on the mirror. Just like we’re on the phone. “I’d like that. I’d like that a lot. Oh, god, that’s so tight.” Wet with his spit, he presses a finger inside and it slowly disappears to the middle.

“I can fuck you harder than you can fuck yourself,” I inform him, watching as his body sucks in the rest of his finger and he thrusts shallowly. Dom’s chest rises and falls rapidly at my words, hips pushing up like he’s begging the reality that’s standing a few feet away. 

“You’re a good fuck, Matt?” He doesn’t do it consciously, I’ll bet, but his head flops over and he looks at me. The illusion is broken; I step closer. I hook my hands beneath my t-shirt and pull it off, tossing it on the floor as I close in on the bed. 

“I’m an amazing fuck. First time my ex stayed over she couldn’t ride her bike home the next day.” 

Dom laughs, the sight beguiling with his body pushing and pulling in time with his hands. He bites his bottom lip pointedly and breathes out hard, slowing his hand just enough that I notice. “I’m gonna come.” 

“No you’re not,” I tell him softly, moving in over the bed. I reach in as I do and move his hand away from his cock. We kiss, we moan, his fingers grip my hair and move down to rub across my bare chest. He starts to remove the other hand from his body, but I warn him sternly: “Keep fucking yourself.” 

He has little choice; my knees trap the other hand when I straddle him at the chest. Hips astride his collarbone, I settle in. The crotch of my jeans is stretched uncomfortable tight over my very comfortably hard cock. Part of me wants to ask him if I’m doing all right. The other part of me knows that confidence is the turn-on, and that the alluring curve of his smiling mouth says enough. I feel his arm moving as he continues to move his hand.

“Suck it,” I tell him plainly.


	7. Chapter 7

How did I get here? Seems like just yesterday I was in high school, giving an awkward handjob to my first boyfriend in the parking lot during a football game. Between then and now time gets sort of jumbled. At some point on that timeline I became more interested in my dog than in other people, in watching television than in going out and possibly meeting anything more than a one night stand. Hard to believe that I met my only proper date in years by working as a phone sex operator. _Technically_ , I remind myself, _we met at a cafe, not because of work._

Without work, though, how far would we have gotten? The date, maybe, or the kiss. Even as far as the hallway outside of the kitchen. But it would have gotten strange, like it always does. I’d have rushed through it, too concerned with looking good than with feeling good. When Matt asked me to watch myself in the mirror, it was the breath of fresh air I needed. Now that he’s taken the initiative in literally pinning me to the bed and making me do what he wants, I’m relieved in a way that makes my excitement even more palpable. I’ve never known why guys always just assume I know what I want or what I want to do. All I want sometimes is to have all of that obsessive control taken away. I love the weight of Matt’s hips on my shoulders. I love knowing that he already likes so many of my quirks. I’m glad he fell for Nick - he’s closest to the real me, after all. I’m glad I’m not drunk. Everything is so much more _real_ this way. 

“You say you work in languages, right?” I lift my free hand and his warm fingers meet mine, helping me a little as I pull on his zipper. He moans and, I answer it, fucking myself slowly and firmly with the same three fingers. 

“Yeah. Professional stuff like PR and correspondence.” He pauses as I pull the pants just far enough down his thighs. His cock is still trapped by the band of his underwear, but I lean forward to lay a kiss on the thick shaft of it as I work my fingers in to free him. I’m a little scared for a moment, hoping somehow that he’s not too big to take comfortably. I don’t like making a good thing seem like an inconvenience just because I’m on the inexperienced side. “God. Dare I ask why you’re bringing this up right now?” 

I nuzzle him with my nose for a few seconds before I smile up mischievously. The sweetly filthy smell of sex and sweat takes me over, and it’s better than being drunk. “Talk dirty to me in another language.”

“Oh,” he says flatly, and then he grinds a moaning breath through his teeth before he rolls his hips up into me a little. “Oh...” Like it’s finally sinking in, what I asked. “Any preference?”

“Whatever’s your favorite,” I tell him shyly. I work his underwear down and he grunts as I take him in my hand. He’s not too big. But he certainly isn’t small, either. He’s fucking gorgeous and I want to tell him so, but I wait for my request as I give him a tempting squeeze and look up. I bat my eyelashes just a little. I’m so happy he notices. Even with limited range, I’m pretty good at body talk. 

“Shǔnxī wǒ de jiāhuo,” he says with a gasping, sexy voice. It sounds so unlike him, that sudden shift to an exotic language. It’s unexpectedly hot, and knowing how smart he is just makes my hand speed up on his dick. He adds, “shì, bǐhuà.” 

“What are you telling me?” I ask, pointing the tip of his cock at my lips as I speak. “It sounds good. What are you saying?”

“Suck my dick. Stroke it.” 

“Is that Japanese?”

“It’s Mandarin Chinese, actually.” 

I smile and feel his hips lift off of my body the slightest bit as I guide him into my mouth. He pushes forward to meet it. Heaven. My breath heaves and my chest rolls as I suck on the tip, managing an “mmm” around the flesh that leaks with a salty-sweetness at the first swipe of my tongue. 

I’ve made a living - quite a fair living - being lascivious and without reservation, but I’m stalling. Do I grab his ass, I wonder? Do I take the initiative? Oh, god, this is why I beg for someone to dominate me. I’m shit at sexual decisions, and it’s not a matter of getting what I want. It’s simply because, the minute I’m actually in the middle of things, I have absolutely no concept of what I want. Not beyond the next couple of seconds, anyway.

Unaware of my own strength, but knowing that he needs to be closer, deeper, I grab him anyway. One side of his small ass fits neatly in my hand and I pull him toward me with a jerking motion that sends his cock almost to the back of my throat. I tense up in momentary fear of choking, and almost stop fucking myself, but the sudden flurry of movement has him pulling out with a laugh. He’s fallen forward, slapping a palm against the wall behind my bed, the other landing on the duvet. 

“Holy shit,” he gasps, shifting as I keep on sucking on him, “you’re intense.”

It makes me smile, and my lips tighten and pull back on the hard flesh of his length. Sucking, wet sounds from my mouth as I slick him up with my tongue and my spit. His hips rotate just a bit into me. I don’t think he knows I felt it, so I squeeze his ass (skinny but plump enough to grab onto, when I try) pointedly at just the right moment. 

He doesn’t ask the question. He knows he doesn’t need to. Matt starts to move his hips and my heart starts to beat faster. Bracing himself on the headboard and the mattress, he moans and dips his cock slowly into my mouth, pushing against the curve of my throat. I tilt my head into the angle and suck on him as greedily as I can manage. Above me he’s lurching and getting stronger in his movements, and his voice is breathing out with a graceful flow and a sultry rhythm. “Yeah... god... fuck... is this okay? Are you okay taking me like this?”

The fact that he cares brings a smile to my face, makes me pull away for a moment, squeezing his hot muscle with my hand as I look up. For the first time I notice the gold chain he wears around his neck, dangling there above me, and his gracious smile as he pants and waits for my answer. I start nodding first, so entranced by the _moment_ that I don’t even think to put on my sexy voice as I say “Fuck my mouth.”

Pleased, and perhaps also a little surprised by my eagerness, he takes it slow, musical moans pulled out every time my lips trap him and try to hold on as he pulls back out. “Shit, that feels so good. Shit, I’m going to go faster,” and he does, his eyes closing and his head dropping down between his shoulders while the tip of his cock jabs into my throat in a steady, graceful rhythm. I’m still breathing, which is a good sign. I’m still so fucking lucky. I scrape my fingernails down over his ass, and just as he whispers “I’m not going to come yet, I’ll stop, don’t worry. How are you doing down there?”

My fingers slide into the groove where he’s only vaguely aware of how good it feels to have another man touch him. 

I sweep one crooked knuckle down over the pucker there and he whines, slamming himself so deeply into my mouth that he gasps “Shit, I’m sorry” and pulls back a little. I don’t give him much time, though, searching for the moment when he looks at me, when he pulls out from between my lips and leaves his cock standing firm and glistening between us, all of his attention fixed on the tip of my finger pressing against his hot, hairless entrance. Between my own legs I’ve lost interest in fucking myself. No matter how good something hard and wet would feel up inside, I’ve got other things on my mind. Such as his face when his virgin horizons expand and take him beyond the point of no return. 

“Jesus, your ass feels gorgeous.” I might be talking nonsense. It feels right, though. 

The chain moves a little as he chuckles above me, shrugs one shoulder sheepishly. “Got waxed.”

I have no idea what an event that constitutes for him, so I just grin. “That’s certainly lucky for me,” I show him how much I approve by leaning forward to lick a strong, hungry line up his cock as my finger twists against him. “We should break out the lube and I should fuck your pretty little ass, don’t you think?” 

His breath slows down. He sort of nods, but then I stop everything as he slides down and interrupts my work on all fronts. I’m frozen with fear for a moment. Did I say something wrong? Is he having second thoughts? Maybe this gay sex thing isn’t all he thought it might be. Everything is a possibility, and all of it spells an awkward rest of the night for me, especially since I drove him here. “Hey,” he starts, which is even less promising.

He doesn’t say another word until my arm is curved around the smooth skin of his back, our eyes level on my big, warm bed. It’s a posture of lovers, and I beg and plead silently that we might remain so. “I know you said all that about taking control,” he says, his voice quite a bit softer but still firm and quite confident. “And I said yes. And I can. I will. But do you want to do that? Or do you want to...”

At first, he won’t say the words. I won’t feed them to him, either. I wait with lazy bedroom eyes and tilt my head slightly at him, hoping he will finish the thought. When he does, he takes a different tack. “Because if you fuck me, I don’t want to be in control. Get my meaning?”

“I get it.” I pull him close and put my hands on his face, opening my mouth on his for a long and sensuous kiss. “Don’t worry. That’s not a dealbreaker. Just don’t leave me wondering. Tell me exactly what you want. I can do it.” I slide one finger down his chest, like I tried to do before, and slide it over to trace a nipple as I anticipate his response. 

“Yeah,” he clears his throat a little and says, “yeah, I need you to fuck me.” This time he’s pulling me in (by the hair, brilliant move) and kissing me, grabbing my shoulder with the other hand and rolling until I’m on top. It’s quite all right. I love being on top. His long, nimble tongue is still exploring my mouth as I reach over with blind sureness for the drawer on the side of the bed, a little further than I can without breaking the kiss. 

I lift up onto my knees and put my palm on his chest, flicking the cap of the lube open with the other hand. “Your heart,” I blurt out. This is the point where it becomes a new world. It wasn’t looking into his eyes or seeing his real life fidgeting or even sucking his cock. It’s spreading my fingers on his chest and feeling the heart thumping strongly beneath. “Beating pretty fast.”

Matt really can’t think of what to say now, and I’ve caught myself in a moment that I never catch myself in on the phone. I’ve put him in an awkward position. He shrugs his shoulders against the mattress and wobbles on a smile. “I’m excited.”

He’s trying to look cool, trying to look held together. But every moment he tries, he just looks farther removed from me, glancing this way and that, taking deep breaths to try and expand his chest or slow down his heart. That never works, of course.

“I know you’re a tough guy,” I lean in and put on my sultriest voice, sweeping just my bottom lip along his mouth before I pull up to look at him closely. I can hear him swallowing thickly. “I don’t like boys, I like fucking _men_ , and you’re one hell of a man. so if you want to tell me anything, you can. I won’t think less of you.”

He sucks in a breath and his head surges up the short way until his lips catch me in another kiss. “I’m nervous,” he murmurs deeply as his head hits the mattress when we part. “Just... be gentle. I know it’s a fucking cliche, but I just... you’re a sort of straightforward, intense guy, so--”

“I understand,” I nod and smile. I won’t let the tender moment impede the progress we’ve made in the passionate sense, which would probably be more the fault of an extended pause in the proceedings. Rather than let that happen, I lower my hand to stroke his thigh as I go on, speaking close to his mouth. “I won’t split your ass open without a second thought, don’t worry. It takes time. It always takes time, right?”

“That’s not the lurid, pornographic fairy tale of it, though,” he laughs, still a little sheepish about it. I’m sitting back, slicking up my fingers. I smile down at him when he says this.

“Yeah, but that’s the cool thing real life. Porn’s got its priorities all screwed up. Gay foreplay, I assure you,” I lean down and kiss the irresistible wisp of dark hair right over his pale, pretty little belly, “is the hottest thing ever.”

He breathes in and out hard through his nose and crooks one leg for me as I shift to spread them apart. “Do you want me to--?” He starts to ask, but I’m moving swiftly, taking care of everything. God, I love virgins. Just talking to them on the phone is a rush that can’t be outdone, but actually bending over one, kissing his knee, and sliding fingers between his legs to feel the tenderest muscles clench nervously? Fucking heaven.

“Relax,” I tell him, and push in. It takes a few minutes, and then a few more, but before I know it I’m stretched above Matt, watching his body rise and fall in gentle waves of rhythm as two of my fingers work deep inside of him, stretching him and crooking maybe millimeters from his prostate. Our pillow talk has progressed accordingly. I’ve already had quite a bit to say about his tight little ass, compliments he’s taken with all the greedy hunger of a top-dollar whore. We grin at each other wickedly and the bedroom antics are nothing if not comfortable. It almost seems like an interruption when I remember that I’ve got to stop making him moan and squirm with my only my hands, and take it to the next level.

“You want it?” I lower myself over him and pull my fingers out, dragging them up over his tender balls before grinding my whole palm against his cock. We meet in a wet kiss, both chuckling a little bit. He’s warmed to the intimacy, body catching up to its own desires. “Just like our first ever phone call, you want it?” 

“Yes, fuck yes,” he urges me, gasping around my lips. “Just like that, fuck me.”

Low on my knees, I pull him close to me and reach down to drag the tip of my cock over his entrance, stroking myself there until I’m hard enough to split him open, but mindful enough to give him the time he deserves.

The first concerted roll of my hips, and I remember how much I love this, how much I’ve missed it. The second thrust to get myself deeper, I hear him cry out for me and thank every god I can think of that he’s so fucking beautiful. I hold his legs up and open him wide, pressing myself deeper, watching him take me with deep, ecstatic breaths.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” I ask teasingly. “Feels good having something big and hard up your ass. Better than you even expected.”

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” he manages to articulate, struggling for a place to think. “Oh, fuck.” Probably because it hurts a little, he doesn’t say much at first. He nods when I ask him if he’s all right, though, and he throws his head back against the pillow to show off that luscious white neck of his. He’s so skinny, so flawless, so pristine. I reach in and wrap my hands around his waist, just beneath his surging ribcage, pulling him closer with every thrust until I’m rolling my hips to fuck him as deep as I can. 

I’m a motherfucking rock star to have pulled this off, I realize. I half expected him to hate me when we met in the cafe. Now he’s lifting his arms to cross behind his head, making his body a long line of pale skin and shifting muscle. If I’d had any idea what he looked like beneath those boring suits he wore, I’d never have taken my eyes off of him. 

“You look good naked,” I tell him. “You look so good getting fucked.”

The smile he gives me, broken by another gasp, suggests that he wants to hear more. If he didn’t like dirty talk, I figure, he wouldn’t have called a sex line for a good time. Lucky for me. 

“That’s right,” I urge him with sweet authority, “smile for me, smile because you like it. You love it. You love me deep inside you like this, love moving your hips like that on my big cock. Don’t you? Matt, you little slut.”

He nods and moves his hips faster to meet mine. I gather him into my hands and shift a little, pulling up on my knees a bit to hold him higher, to fuck him at an angle that, from my limited experience, draws great results. 

Sure enough, within a minute he’s groaning, opening his mouth to say “Yes”, legs tightening on my back as I’m thrusting my cock in the perfect way, to hit the perfect spot. Bucking wilder against me, he’s obviously gotten used to the feeling, and gotten over some of the self-consciousness. He still chuckles and rubs a hand against his face when I slip out of him in the midst of all the athletic fucking, gives me an apologetic shrug when it happens a second time, but moans delightedly when I hold him fast and just start fucking him fiercely, deeply toward the end. 

I throw him a question and he answers me. “Good?” 

“Yeah!”

“Faster?”

“Yes, fuck me faster - shit - fuck me hard as you can!”

“Want me to do it inside of you?”

He doesn’t even hesitate. “Yes... yes, fuck, Dom, yes!”

“That’s right... god, that’s right, put those fucking hips into it, make me come.” 

I don’t want it to end. I really don’t. No idea whether he’ll never want to see me again after I drive him back. No idea whether any of this will last after the next few minutes. But really, I don’t care. The sweetest ass I’ve ever fucked and one of the best looking men I’ve ever known - not much can stop it from winding up to the only natural conclusion. 

“Matt - god - _Matt_.” He stills a little and his fingers tighten on my arms as I come, announcing myself with that shuddering whisper.

Silent, sweating, and unsure of what to say, the afterglow has us panting on top of the mattress, sprawled out next to each other. With few words, he excuses himself to the bathroom and it leaves me a few minutes to think as I wonder what to say when he gets back. The sinking feeling that I won’t be getting reciprocal treatment crosses my mind, which I can only think of as a crying shame for both of us. I won’t let him go home unsatisfied, I determine. When he gets back I’ll pull him over and take his cock in my mouth and give him a blowjob of the gods, something he will remember even if he never wants anal sex again for the rest of his life. 

Why would I be so worried?, you might wonder. He was calling out for me, raising his voice to beg me to fuck him harder. He was into it. He loved it, and his cock stayed hard the entire time. It even seemed to be hard when he left the room. 

It’s just the power of paranoia and insecurity. It’s the sort of thing that keeps you single for years and makes you happy to be that way. That’s all. 

_God, please don’t be jerking off in the bathroom._

I moan with a little shameful whine of fear attached, staring at the wall without a mirror when I hear his voice again: “Hey, Dom?”

I’m still naked, but I’m okay with being naked. What makes me feel stripped is the way he’s talking softly, tentatively, the way he moves into the room and sits down on the edge of the bed first, like he wants to be removed from me.

I will myself to still be companionable, to try and be seductive. After all, I _am_ still naked, and _he_ still hasn’t gotten off. I roll halfway and reach my hand toward him on the mattress. “Yeah?” I smile. 

“Hey, this might be the weirdest place to say this, but I figure my nerve’s up now so now’s a good time. Because if this is a weird thing to say I can just... get dressed or something,” he chuckles to stall for time, and scratches behind his neck, glancing away. “It’s just, I want to say thanks. And I want to make sure you know, this is something I really like. I mean, you. This. Okay, god, I mean more than that. See, I can come off as a jerk, I know. It’s how I am, so... thanks for taking the time, and now I’m really wanting to lay it on the line and say I really like you and I hope I won’t just be a one night stand.” 

He says all of that at the end in one rushed, breathless push of voice and breath, but I’ve grown so knowledgeable of his voice that it doesn’t faze me. I may be taking too long to let it all sink in and let the grin take over my face, though, because he looks a little terrified until I finally speak, pushing my head halfway into the sheets, staring up at him with what feels like a radiant smile. “You big sap, that’s what I was gonna say.”

“Yeah, I know, I got all schmaltzy and romantic about-- wait, what?” 

I laugh and pull up onto my elbows to give myself a better angle. “Getting romantic shouldn’t be reserved for when you’re too bored with everything to care. I like romantic. I love romantic. And you’re great.” I shrug. “I like you too. I really do. As more than a one night stand, yeah. I got worried while you were gone that you were going to just run off. That you hated it.” 

“No! No, fuck no. I loved it.” 

“Really? How do I measure up?” 

“Um,” he casts his eyes down, and I immediately cackle. “Measuring up, not sure I have a frame of reference - very nice, though - but if you’re talking about the whole straight guy thing...” 

“Well, sort of.”

His eyes lock onto mine. “I can’t really compare you to the best pussy I’ve ever had because I haven’t fucked you yet.” 

“Oh, god,” I manage with the most _gay_ flourish I’ve put on anything I’ve said in a long time. “Bitch, you have _no_ idea.”

“Well,” his voice snaps into what I had hoped it might. “We can fix that.” 

I just look at him. I look at him with a sassy, daring expression at first, but then it dawns on me. The conversation we had. What that means. I don’t want to put a word on it, not really, but I’m not cynical enough that I won’t make the inference. 

I’ve got a boyfriend. I’ve got a fucking boyfriend, for the first time in... well, my god, for the first time that’s ever really mattered in my adult life. My heart surges to think about it, and I’m sure my whole face lights up under the influence.


	8. Chapter 8

I feel good about this. I feel comfortable, more than I thought I might. I’d been fearful that it would take booze to get me to this point, but it turns out that it really only takes a champion fuck and a sincere smile to get me easing into the role I always aimed for. 

“Can we?” Dom asks, mumbling and glancing down at my lips as they draw closer to his, opening beneath them to greet my tongue with a playful push. After devouring his mouth for what seems like not long enough, I nod as I pull back. I’ve moved over him. On my hands and knees, naked over his lounging body. He seems so different from this angle. I already know he’s an actor, but he really does seem to be showing me another (very natural) side. 

“How much do you like me?” I ask on the tail end of the nod, teasing him with another kiss, breath getting faster and louder as his does, like another conversation taking place beneath the actual words we’re speaking. 

“Mmm... a lot. I like you a whole lot.” 

Pleased with this answer, I start kissing down his neck, soft hot skin feeding my hungry lips before the rise of his clavicle and the hardness of his chest. His heartbeat, swift and strong like he said mine was. His nipples, solid and small, perfect little buttons to slap the tip of my tongue across while his fingers play in my hair and he moans. “I like that,” he tells me, “I really like getting my nipples played with.”

I bring my head up just enough to look at him, and he’s watching me when I do. It seems to excite him in the moment that we lock eyes, when my teeth bare down on the nipple between my lips and I bite gently. Dom moans; not excruciatingly loud, but loud enough that I know I’ve pleased him. “I’ll have to do this while I fuck you, then,” I tell him, smiling while my fingers move in to demonstrate the way I plan to take the little knob of nerves between my knuckles and twist. He tosses his head back on the pillow and cries out.

“Yes,” he gasps.

“You love sex so much,” I stay where I am, and move my hand down. I want to feel his cock, want to enjoy it with just my sense of touch before all my other senses join in. “I like that, that gets me hard. I can tell how much you do.”

Mumbling, teasing me, he lifts one arm and tucks it beneath his head. “I’m a slut.”

I’m looking at his face, studying his cute little smirk; I delight in knowing he’s really no such thing. “Why are you such a slut, Dom?” My hand moves in and cups his balls. He rolls his hips into my touch, moaning as I caress his cock, trying to bring it back to life. It doesn’t seem like it will take much. 

“I love cock,” he says pointedly, and follows up with a more luxurious tone of voice. It’s well practiced but just different enough. He’s not thinking of the words at the same time that they are absolutely, one hundred per cent conscious. The truth is intersecting with the act, and I couldn’t be happier to be sole beneficiary. “I love a big, thick cock that feels good between my lips and then feels better inside of me. I just love the feeling. A cock just like yours.” He lifts a leg half-heartedly, too distracted to go through with the gesture that was meant to rub between my thighs. I grin as I move further over him until I’m looking down at his face again. My hand is still moving over his gorgeous dick. I squeeze it harder. My reward is more of his voice, which is the best I can ask for. “Go on and fuck it.”

“Not yet,” I say strongly, playing into my dominant side, leaning down to kiss his neck as he gasps, his lips as they open to cry out when my fingers move down to finger his asshole. “First of all I won’t fuck _it_ , I’m going to fuck _you_. Not to get too sentimental, but you’re a total package. I wouldn’t be opposed to fucking any part of you. For now...” I draw in a deep, sensual breath as I pull away, and his eyes follow mine. “On your knees, if you please. Nasty boy.”

“On my knees for...?” He starts to sit up and I wrap my other arm around his waist, hand moving along the muscles at the small of his back. I hold him up and lean in, our bodies twisting together a bit. Face buried in his fragrantly sweaty neck, fingers roaming between his slender thighs, I kiss him and answer the half-spoken question. 

“I want to taste you. Like you told me to.”

I hear him breathe in hard and feel the tension in his shoulders as passion overwhelms him. And just what do I think I’m doing? I’ve never wanted to, before. I’m not even sure that I want to, with Dom. But it feels right because he feels so _happy_ , so excited and aroused as he looks into my eyes at our startlingly close range, sucks me into a kiss, and then moans into a curve, turning his body. I want to make another human being so happy right now that I’m completely satisfied to step out of my comfort zone. It’s worked wonders so far, after all.

God damn, that ass. He stretches out his back and lifts it into the air, always moving for me, always _aware_ of what he’s doing with that body of his. I settle into a cross-legged pose to wait for him, as he faces the headboard and grabs it, knees spread on the colorful bed, the almost-heart shape of his ass spread above that. 

If aesthetics had always been the thing to turn me off in branching out from female to male lovers, that certainly isn’t a problem here. “You like?” He asks me, swaying back and forth a bit.

“Fuck yes,” I respond, holding onto the words as I shift forward and grab him in both hands, gripping the flesh as if my life depended on it, spreading him with my thumbs, licking before I know what I’m doing. He catches a breath and it almost sounds like a little squeak of pleasure as I repeat the move, too excited by his reactions to care about whether I like the act of tonguing his ass, and how much.

He’s talking about my long tongue, begging for me, and little by little the liquor of his voice meets the flavor of his words and I’m drunk enough to give in to whatever he wants. I’ve fucked him so thoroughly and unexpectedly with my tongue that by the time I pull away, his cock is rock-hard and I’m panting in awe of the way he’s making me act.

“Fuck me. Pull me back into your lap and fuck me.”

And there I was, until that moment, wondering whether I wanted to even brave the question of position. Dom’s sex-heavy grey eyes glance back at me over his shoulder and he smirks, then puckers his lips. Nothing more is really needed. He’s ready. I’m ready. We’re on top of the fucking world, and then I remember he’s my boyfriend, now.

I pounce on him from behind, fitting my stomach over his back, hot skin burning where it’s trapped together. My arms wrap around him. He supports us both on the headboard, moaning. “Do you mind if I kiss you?” I ask, lips on the back of his damp neck.

“Right now I wouldn’t mind if you set me on fire - fucking of _course_ , kiss me.” The whole world shifts, and our equilibrium bunches together, knots up, and rides the wave of adrenaline when he pushes off from the headboard. I kiss him over his shoulder and he meets me, practically gnawing at my bottom lip, the whole matter a gnash of teeth and tongues and bodies twining around until I’ve got him in my lap.

And then, just like that, before we even make a ceremony of it or I ask Dom if he’s ready (when I’m already completely aware that he is) I’ve slicked myself up, lifted him up just a bit, and he’s crying out as he lowers himself back down to impale himself on my cock. 

“Oh, shit,” he says in a moment of unrehearsed, raw, unprofessional brilliance, “ooohhhh shit, that’s fucking good.” It’s night and day compared to the studied, gentle way he started to fuck me. We’re communicating, yes. We don’t have much of a choice. There’s a very considerate feeling that’s nonetheless sort of throbbing and sort of obscene, as I drag my fingers over his tight stomach, lick the line of his neck, and reply to him in animal moans while he squirms and bounces into a comfortable spot in my lap. “Oh, god. Oh, god, Matt. When you put your knees around me and--” he pauses to catch his breath, trying his best to talk around the strain of pleasure (and I have no insecure delusions that it is _anything_ but pleasure), “--and when you fucked my mouth I thought ‘holy shit, he’s going to be a fucking animal with that cock’, so--”

I interrupt him. “You weren’t expecting it to feel this good, even then, were you?” I push my hips up a little, getting used to the subtle gymnastics of this position. There’s this transformation that happens with me, and that’s why I’m confident. That’s why I went with it - with Dom - even though I still couldn’t believe my luck. I’m genuine in my self-assurance that I’m a great fuck, because I’ve been told so - and I’ve rarely walked away from a bedroom leaving a girl unsatisfied. Even on the phone, just describing to Dom how I would do it, I felt just as smug as could be. 

No room for smugness now. Just facts. “Say it,” I hiss against his neck, then kiss it. “Tell me I’m the best.”

“The best...” he whispers, knees pushing him up and hips lowering him back down, plump ass pistoning on top of me as we find a rhythm and our skin begins to slap together when our strokes meet almost violently. “Matt. Matt, fuck, I’ve needed this so long.”

“Better than a toy, right? Better than a phone call?”

He just cries out. He’s gone off the rails. He’s tight around me and I’m too engrossed in feeling his intensity that I don’t think to tell him just yet how good _he_ is. Like I promised I would, I reach up and start to twist his nipples in my fingers. Dom yells again, nearly setting us off balance as he throws an arm back to grab me by the neck, body slamming into my chest. Moving, bouncing, fucking himself tirelessly, panting and grunting like a marathon runner in my clutches. I don’t need much more of an answer.

“I’ve never known you to be at a loss for words,” I smile against his moving shoulder. I can’t do anything else. He laughs in between a moan to answer me, but both our voices become lost in the passion.

I hold onto his hips and lean back, secure in how he’s supporting me at the same time I’m supporting him. I can see the line of his back, I can see the dips of muscle definition leading to his ass, I can see it quiver and flex where he’s fucking me. He leans back just a bit more. In the moment, I’m having the greatest sex I’ve ever had in my life, and contrary to every worry I had about Dom and the nature of our relationship, we don’t need a single word to make it extraordinary. 

He lets me know I’ve hit his magic spot with a long, loud cry. He says my name. I start to fuck him stronger, gritting my teeth, keeping my pace while my heart beats and my body tells me it’s so, so, so close to orgasm. “I’m going to come inside of you,” I tell him, but only because I know he’s not going to have it any other way. “Touch yourself.”

I can hear his hand moving on his cock, but only just barely before I come, moaning “Dom...” as our hips slam together on a few pointed thrusts. We sway a bit. A feeling of stillness descends for a moment. In the swimming post-orgasmic ether, I manage to think again.

“Jesus Christ,” Dom gasps, a ghost of a laugh once again on his lips. 

“Come here,” I fight through the wave of exhaustion at knowing I’ve fucked and been fucked, because I know we’re hardly finished yet. My hands join at his stomach; I pull him with me, still inside of him as I fall back onto the mattress. Laughter and disbelief keeps us from moving for a few beats, giving me a chance to clutch my hand on his. Finally, Dom unwinds his legs and I stretch mine out, scooting from beneath him until, within a flurry of maybe ten sweaty seconds, we’re side by side on his bed. 

Face-to-face, mouth-to-mouth, breathing in and out with unspoken gratitude and ecstasy as our fingers coil together on his hot cock: “Make me come,” his lips move against mine as he speaks. When his eyes open they’re right in front of mine, close-set and unforgettable. 

“Right on your clean bed,” I tease him.

“We’ll make a bigger mess of it together than I ever made alone,” he says, obviously in that pre-orgasmic uphill climb of euphoric babble. He’s still able to think, to grin at me and then wink. 

I nod, trying to place my next words carefully. “You know,” I lift my head just slightly until I can touch my lips to his ear when I speak. “After that, I may never fuck a pussy again.”

“Good,” he sort of shoves himself into me. Our hands are tightening, moving faster as he pants around his words. He lifts a leg to wind into mine. The playfulness of it all is almost erotic in and of itself. “Because you’re not going anywhere else for a long time.” 

“From this bed, specifically, or more figuratively?” 

“Hush,” he commands me, and rolls me just a bit until that wound leg is helping him arch over me slightly. “I want to get off.” 

“Anything you say,” I agree plainly and happily. I smile, we kiss, and with a few rolls of hips over the course of the next minute, Dom is becoming hungrier and hungrier for release.

Finally, he breaks the kiss, and cries out an enthusiastically exhausted “Fuck!” 

He spreads out on the bed next to me, leaving his come on my stomach despite the fact that he promised me a messy bed. We’re both looking up at the ceiling fan. I think we’re both wishing it was on, if he’s anywhere near as hot as I am from the three hours we just fucked our way out of the insecurity that ours would be a one-date wonder doomed to be the most awkward sex on the planet.

Certainly not. Beyond the shadow of a doubt. And if you’ll excuse me, I’m too high on brain chemicals and all of those fantastic images replaying in my mind to start worrying about whether it will last. 

Our feet are on his pillows. We’re sideways and exhausted and we don’t really care. Dom turns his head after a minute or two of quality silence. “Hey.”

I can hear the smile in his voice. I turn my head to see his face flushed, his hair wild from the workout, and a heavy droop of pleasant weariness to his eyes. “Hey, what?” 

“I’ve got a joke for you.”

Stunned but too enchanted by him to say more than a word, I just nod and grin. “Okay.”

“Why can’t a man living in the U.S. be buried in Canada?” 

I’m also too exhausted to even attempt to pick the joke apart. Not that I’d want to; I only pick apart the jokes of people I don’t like. “Why?” 

He pauses, blinking his eyes slowly as a sly smile creeps over him. “Because he’s still alive.”

Before I’ve stopped laughing, though I have no idea why, he’s asked me to spend the night with him. 

The next morning is nearly over by the time we’ve rolled awake together and pulled on just enough clothes to go downstairs. With horror, Dom realizes he’s left Wembley outside all night, and he’s cooing apologies at the always-loving dog as we sit on the back porch sipping coffee. It’s a cool morning, breeze rustling through my hair as I breathe in the beachy air and enjoy the sunshine on my skin. “You need to work today?” He asks me. 

“Probably,” I shrug, only a little pang of guilt needling me at the thought of playing hooky once again. “I’ll pull a double shift tomorrow.” 

“I really don’t want you risking anything at work. You can run off now, if you want. I’ll drive you back to get your car.” He pauses to throw a tennis ball for Wembley.

“It’s okay, really.” He makes a great pot of coffee, I want to say. It’s strong and crisp, and obviously he buys the good stuff. “Unless you have somewhere to be.” 

“Not really,” there’s a sadness to his voice as he shrugs. I know it wasn’t meant to be missed.

“What’s the matter?” 

“Nothing! Nothing I should get worried over, just...” Fidgeting, a sigh, a hand in his hair. “All right, fine. Yeah, it’s just... what am I going to do about work, now?” 

“You mean tonight? What do you want to do? I won’t stay all day, I promise!”

“No... no, I mean in general. I’ve wondered about it before, how I’d manage to have a boyfriend and do the work that I do at the same time.” 

“Ah.” So that’s what he was on about. And it makes sense, really. “Well, the way I see it - and I wondered about it, too, a little bit yesterday - this shouldn’t change anything. You’re an actor. If I can’t deal with this from you, that means I don’t respect your decisions and don’t deserve you.” 

He thinks about it, shrugging deeper. Wembley pads up onto the porch in front of us and starts chewing on his tennis ball, oblivious to our petty human problems. “Yeah, but... then I think about why I do it. And I love the work, I do. I even want to do the webcam shows, when those start up for the company. I just don’t want you to ever think you’re not special. I do it because I’m good at it, and people pay for that. I respect my clients, too, you know. That’s why I talk to them the way I do, that’s why I make good money. But for the longest time I used the job as an excuse to not get into a relationship, to not take that chance. So if you ever feel like--”

“What if I sit in?” 

He looks bemused at first, like he doesn’t really want to believe what his natural brightness tells him is going on. “What? What do you mean?” 

“What if I sit in the room for your calls? Just for a call or two, if you want. I don’t know, maybe that’s a stupid idea.” 

Chin in his fist, he’s thinking about it. “No... no, that’s a great idea. I mean, I like it. I don’t know how it will be - I get pretty in the zone, if you know what I mean. But that sounds interesting.” 

“That way while you’re talking dirty you can have me there as inspiration.”

“What about when I’m playing therapist and priest?” He teases me and leans closer. I kiss him on the forehead. “You’ll need to get used to my other characters, too. They can be a handful, sometimes.”

Despite what seem like protests, he’s falling in love with the idea. “Only when you want to,” I tell him softly, “and only _if_ you want to. But I won’t make you feel shitty for doing your job. I know you’re great at it, so you need to keep doing it.” I’m sipping my coffee and he’s looking thoughtful during the pause.

“You’re not paranoid that I’ll get swept off my feet by another caller?” 

I have to admit I am, in a weird sort of way. I don’t know him well enough yet to trust him completely, but this is where my role in being a boyfriend begins. “That’s not going to happen.” I smile with a bit of the smugness I let out so freely last night. 

“Why do you say that?” 

“Because I’m perfect for you.” 

He laughs, tossing his head back when he does. “That’s almost as corny as my joke was.” 

“I think you liked it.”

“I think you liked my joke.” 

We just laugh together, neither confirming nor denying anything. It feels good, it feels comfortable. I like where this is going. “I’m hungry,” I blurt out. 

“Most important things first, then... we need to eat.” 

“Giallo’s?” I ask, squinting into the sun. 

“Always,” Dom replies, and reaches over to hold my hand.

THE END


End file.
